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MLB All-Star Game 2015: 5 most memorable All-Star Games

By Will Osgood

Jun 24, 2015; Milwaukee, WI, USA; An All Star Game banner hangs in the outfield prior to the game between the New York Mets and Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park. Milwaukee won 4-1. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports
Jun 24, 2015; Milwaukee, WI, USA; An All Star Game banner hangs in the outfield prior to the game between the New York Mets and Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park. Milwaukee won 4-1. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports /
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2002

Before we get to main reason the 2002 All-Star Game was so memorable (in this case, definitely not the best All-Star Game), it should be duly noted there was at least one moment which stood out for its All-Star pageantry, if you will.

Barry Bonds hadn’t yet broken Mark McGwire’s record for single season home runs, but it was obvious he was close to threatening the mark. He had taken over as the game’s most feared power hitter.

Early in the 2002 game it looked as if he was going to do something which rarely seems to happen in All-Star Games, a big-time power hitter hitting a home run. He squared the ball up off American League starter Derek Lowe from the Boston Red Sox with two outs in the top of the first inning.

He belted a 1-1 fastball deep to right center field, but didn’t quite get enough of it to guarantee a home run. His fate was in the hands of the best centerfielder in the game at the time, the Minnesota Twins’ Torii Hunter.

Yet Hunter initially seemed to have little time to rob Bonds. Then almost out of nowhere he enters the picture and almost in the blink of an eye leaps to calmly grab the ball out of mid-air and land securely back on the outfield warning track–much like Ken Griffey, Jr. did to end the game in Little Big League.

Yet as great as Hunter’s grab was, and cool the moment was, at least at the time, when Bonds then went to lift Hunter over his shoulder (because it would only happen in an All-Star Game), it is not the moment we most remember from the 2002 All-Star Game.

It was later, much later in fact. So late the game had to be called. That’s right, a baseball game called. Because: tie game.

Neither team had any more pitchers to throw out there. And in an All-Star Game, despite the exhibitional nature of the event, neither team was going to have a position player pitch. They couldn’t.

The worst part of it all was the fact it came in commissioner Bud Selig’s home ballpark, Miller Park, in Milwaukee. For the game which it had fought so hard to overcome the strike in 1994, and had an insane amount of success in recreating its image, this was a dark spot.

The one sport which touts its All-Star Game above all but one other event on its league calendar, having a tie was just bad. B-A-D.

There is no other way to say it.

The result, of course led to the All-Star Game now “meaning something” where it decided homefield advantage for the World Series (again ridiculous) and expanded rosters (fine by me) to ensure it never happens again.

These changes almost assuredly would have never been made if not for the 2002 game, which by the way, was the only game since 1962–when the award was first introduced to the All-Star Game–to not name an MVP.

Just bad. And memorable, for the wrong reasons.

Next: Each MLB team's worst All-Star selection ever

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