Cal is the first AS game starter in Jerry's decade long reign of terror

[D-train]

[gil]

Tell me if this seems right. 15 teams in the league and there are 9 starters. Assuming the starters are randomly distributed among the teams, that would be .6 starters per team each year, i.e., a 60% chance of having a starter in a given year. So a 40% chance of NOT having a starter in a given year.

If my logic and math are correct, the likelihood of no starters from any given team for 9 years is 0.0262144% -- or about 1 in 3,800.

But we are due, right?

Congrats, Cal, very much deserved!

[Donn Beach]

The athletics and marlins have both gone 10 years without an All Star starter

[Millikin]

It's pretty sweet to have a Mariner all-star who definitely deserves to be there.

[Donn Beach]

Nelson Cruz was the last one, 2015, I couldn't think of who that was

[Michael K.]

This would be more damning if it wasn't a popularity contest. There was actually some fear that despite the fact that Cal deserved, and had like a million vote lead going into this final round, that because of the ridiculous way this is chosen? He might not be the starter based on some ground roots campaign by Canadians to get their guy in. Pretty ridiculous that fans make the final decision, and even then they reset the votes to decide the starter.

It should be like a percentage. Do a ballot for the players, one for the media, one for the fans and maybe even one for the Front Offices. You could even give the fan vote a 40% weight if you wanted, and do 20% for the other three....but leaving this solely up to a popularity contest by fans seems to take some of the merit out of it, at least to me.