I ... 1) am not a sports journalist; 2) am a Kansas City Royals fan, but this is not just an opinion about baseball. It's an opinion about why the social web is making gatekeepers furious. I write this as a long-time worker in an industry that is slowly but surely getting overturned. But first, allow a little ranting from another part of me—a fan.
Over the past two weeks, fans of other MLB teams and sportswriters have rent their clothes and gnashed their teeth over the fact that as many as eight Kansas City Royals position players were leading the vote for the 2015 All-Star Game.
Fans of other teams, I get you. Many times over the years, I have watched Royals All-Star-worthy players get passed by, that is, until they landed on other teams. The best example is Carlos Beltran, who finally became an All-Star the year he was traded mid-season to the Astros. When he joined the New York Mets, he made it five times with mostly comparable numbers to his last three in Kansas City.
Fans can feel whatever they feel. This game is for them. As a fan, I have watched the baseball establishment—the league and the media, mainly—allow a decade-plus of baseball that was patently unfair. I know that anger and disappointment. Juiced players were only part of the problem. The even more blatant problem was, as Bob Costas tried to argue, a league was being treated like a market economy. While many smaller market teams lingered at the bottom of the standings, the outrage was not nearly as palpable as this All-Star brouhaha. That teams like the Royals finally made it to the playoffs has more to do with savvy than a real fair fix.
If any of this is the outcome of rules-breaking, I will come back and admit I was wrong. MLB says it's not, but still, of course Jose Altuve deserves the start at second base over Omar Infante and, of course, Alex Rios should not be elected in a year when he's mainly been hurt and then struggled in his return. Yes, fans of Josh Donaldson, you can debate that he should start ahead of Mike Moustakas, even if the Royals third baseman is having a breakout season after a breakout playoff run. Yes, even Eric Hosmer admits Miguel Cabrera should start at first base, which now appears likely.
None of this is really the point.
The story was supposed to go like this: Kansas City had its moment last October by sweeping through the American League playoffs and landing 90 feet away from tying Game 7 of the World Series in the bottom of the ninth inning. Then they were supposed to go away.
I read with a fan's incredulity as the 2015 season predictions rolled out. The monologue in my brain went something like: Fourth place in the division!?! ... We lose ONE pitcher and one designated hitter and we're toast? ... That's not even what statistical regression means!!! ... Etc.
But the Royals got off to a hot start and have the best record in the American League this morning. Add that to Internet-only fan voting and suddenly nearly three decades of frustration came pouring out of the heartland, as David Hill at FanSided explained:
If you do not like the results, go out and vote. That is all that we are doing, and we certainly will not apologize for voting the Blue Ballot. The All-Star Game is an exhibition, regardless of whatever importance Bud Selig tried to put upon the game, with the starters voted in by the fans. As much as you may hate to admit it, the Royals do have fans as well.
I would simply point that defiance to the sportswriters instead. Not all of them, of course. But those who got a little ahead of themselves—I'm looking at you Free-Press and that lede you wrote—when baseball reported how many votes were scrubbed so far. (Turns out that happens before the results are announced.) And to those who, sometimes sincerely (ahem), sometimes anti-democratically, sometimes with a little more creativity, keep using the Royals-packed ASG vote counts as a time to reflect on what should be different. Because when the dominance rested in the hands of mega markets, sprinkled with media-driven hype of a few other players, it wasn't worth changing. Only now is this clear proof it's time to change.
Well, this is not that big of a deal, as Ted Berg points out. It will likely be adjusted, somewhat, by fans who care. Yes, the Royals got a running lead and might have a few more players in the starting lineup than is normal, or even warranted. Next year fans will know to get online and push through the players they love. It's not hard to vote 35 times, even if you don't have
Or, go ahead, change the rules. Who cares? The point has already been made.
A small market fan base high-jacked your big league party. And it happened the year paper ballots were scrapped for a pure Internet vote. We are seeing again how a social web, rallied around a point, can create populist movements that knock down gates. The movements don't always last, but the phenomenon won't go away. Far more important examples of this stand right before us.
This is just a lighter-hearted example of how for all its proclaimed commitment to "truth," mass media have an uncanny ability to keep the status quo in place. How "expertise" consumes its own chatter. How that leads to an elitism that primarily benefits the powerful. The Royals (and teams like them) were a joke for almost three decades, but the joke was not funny.
Six, seven, eight Royals starting the All-Star Game. That is pretty funny.
