The All-Star Factor: Check the Standings
TOWER GROVE — The headline above the masthead — a skybox, was we call them — on the front page of yesterday’s Chicago Sun-Times shouted, “All is Forgiven”, and next to it was a photo of Chicago Cubs reliever Carlos Marmol, the sudden All-Star.
Marmol was the last addition to the National League All-Star team for tonight’s All-Star Game — the celebrated send-off of venerable Yankee Stadium — and just by joining the team he helped this year’s Cubs tie a record. Marmol is the eighth Cub selected to the team, tying a record set by the 1943 Cardinals and equaled since by the 1956 Cincinnati Reds and the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates. Marmol got the spot once held by teammate Kerry Wood, who won’t pitch because of a blister, and because he had the highest total of peers votes for any player not yet selected.
“It’s amazing walking in here today and seeing seven of my teammates already here and talking,” Wood told MLB.com in this article about the Cub invasion. “It’s special. It’s something different. There’s guys who don’t have any teammates here, and I’m sitting here with seven of my buddies.”
Scott Boras told colleague Rick Hummel how unamused he was that his client Kyle Lohse didn’t get the call to the Bronx, and several of Lohse’s teammates shared that opinion.
Critics will point to statistics: Marmol is 2-3 with a 4.13 as the Cubs’ setup man.
But he’s hardly alone. Across the diamond tonight for the American League team is another player who has been hardly an All-Star since June 1, Boston catcher Jason Varitek. The two stats since July 1:
Marmol … 9.37 ERA
Varitek … .142 Batting Average
Still, peer votes and past performance have merit. Varitek is one of seven Red Sox in tonight’s game, a standard number as a nod to the previous year’s World Series champion. (Only once since the tied All-Star Game has the previous year’s championship club had fewer than three representatives as the following All-Star festitivities; that was last year when Albert Pujols went as the world champs lone All-Star … and, old news here, didn’t play.) And other teams have had hordes of All-Stars before. The White Sox had seven in 2006, the year after their title; the New York Mets had six that same year. Back in 2003, Atlanta had seven All-Stars, and in 2004 the New York Yankees took a run at the record — held at nine by the ‘58 Yankees — with eight All-Stars.
When starter Rich Harden made his debut over the weekend, he became the 37th player to appear in a game for the Cubs. Slightly more than 1/5 of the players used — and about a third of the active roster — were selected as All-Stars, and the Cubs will make up a about a fourth of the NL All-Star roster.
Only Carlos Zambrano was a manager’s pick. The rest were fan or peer votes.
Hard to argue with those numbers — or the standings, with the Cubs on top.
But what does a lot of All-Stars mean. As mentioned, it has been a reward for championships past, but is it a harbinger of championships future? Not really. Since the tie in Milwaukee, the team with the most All-Stars that summer won the World Series just once — last year when Boston had six All-Stars and the title.
Of the 40 playoff teams in the past five years, 26 have had at least three All-Stars.
Only five of the 40 playoff teams had had just one All-Star:
- Minnesota ‘03 (LHP Eddie Guardado)
- Atlanta ‘04 (C Johnny Estrada)
- Minnesota ‘04 (RHP Joe Nathan)
- San Diego ’05 (RHP Jake Peavy)
- Oakland ‘06 (LHP Barry Zito)
The record-holders don’t offer much else. The 1958 Yankees, who had those nine All-Stars at Memorial Stadium against Stan Musial & Co., went on that season to win the World Series. It was the last of the six World Series the Yankees won in the 1950s. From the National League, the three teams that now share the record with the Cubs for eight All-Stars had these October fates:
1943 Cardinals lost to the Yankees in the World Series.
1956 Cincinnati Reds won 91 games, but finished third in NL.
1960 Pittsburgh Pirates won World Series on a homer you might have heard about by Bill Mazeroski.
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Doing the research for the above entry reminded me of a tiny, but lifelong, perk of being named an All-Star. Sometime soon, Ryan Ludwick’s page at Baseball-Reference.com, all 311 games of it there right now, will get a new addition: A permanent, red-white-and-blue banner above his stats that reads, “All-Star.” It will be just like Marmol’s.
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Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
While I wouldn’t want the players to miss out on the unique experience of being an all-star, from the selfish standpoint of being a ticket holding fan I prefer the Cardinals to be home relaxing and healing.
I am very happy that none appeared in the home run hitting competition.
My only all star votes cast were a few on-line votes for Yadi because Tony lobbied on his behalf.
My two sons voted a few fist fulls for the home team, but as I looked over their shoulders I don’t believe their ballots had any better chance of counting than the average senior citizen of Broward County.