Twistity Sports Exclusive: Baseball’s Politics

All-Star voting is the closest thing to old Chicago-style ballot box shenanigans, except the dead don’t take part (or turn up repeatedly).

Fan voting requires (wait for it) … fans. The system weighs against players on less-popular teams or where fans simply don’t care much, two of the key descriptions of Miami’s populace. Hence the hosing of Marlins third baseman Casey McGehee.

McGehee leads all National League third baseman in hitting (.320 at the time of this typing). Yet he might as well be campaigning for the All-Star team as a fringe candidate from some whacko party.

Fans voted for Milwaukee’s Aramis Ramirez. Players voted for Cincinnati’s Todd Frazier. They’re good choices. But when it came time to make things right by selecting McGehee, St. Louis manager Mike Matheny, who will manage the NL team, chose his own third baseman – Matt Carpenter. That’s Carpenter, 32 runs batted in, and not McGehee, with 53.

That’s Carpenter, batting .282, nearly 40 points below McGehee. Matheny at least had the decency to inform McGehee personally, though how do you say ‘we’re taking away something you’ve earned’ and not offend?

McGehee can still make the All-Star team. There is more online voting on MLB.com that concludes on Thursday at 4 p.m. ET. The Final Vote pits five players against each other for the last roster spot.

Miami obviously needs some old-time Chicago stuffing of the electronic ballot box. How, exactly, does one get out the vote without knocking on doors in these dangerous times?

“Sometimes Miami gets a bad rap about voting stuff,” said McGehee, a great comeback story in MLB after he played in Japan last year. “Hopefully they can prove everybody wrong.”
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman .