MLB All-Star Weekend: Celebrity Softball and Futures Game
The 2019 Major League All-Star Game came to Cleveland. Did I go? Damn right, I went. After you've been to every park and watched the most epic Game 7 in history in person, what else is there left to do but knock out an All-Star Game?
I didn't get my season tickets for the game, but I was able to buy a single in the upper deck. More technically, I bought a strip of tickets, with one ticket each for the Celebrity Softball game / Futures game, one for the Home Run Derby and one for the All-Star game itself.
M and I returned from Washington, DC on Sunday, July 7 and by the time we picked up Tulip and everything else the Celebrity Software Game was already under way. I caught a ride downtown and caught the second half of it. The conceit was that a team of celebrities with some tie to Cleveland played a set of other celebrities with no Cleveland tie, hence "Cleveland vs the World", to mimic the popular t-shirt. To be perfectly honest, aside from a bunch of MLB alumni and a few other athletes like Simone Biles, I didn't recognize most of the people on either team. Well, besides Drew Carey, obviously, and Anthony Mackie. For softball they had a fence put up a decent chunk behind the infield, but far from the real fence. They played by different rules, which I mostly ignored. The World team won, which is pretty typical really for Cleveland.
After a pause to remove the fences, the All-Star Futures Game began. This featured minor leaguers from A to AAA representing every team, divided by AL vs NL. It was scheduled for only seven innings, which I assume was some sort of split between "don't overplay the rookies" and "nobody really cares about the Future Game." Unsurprisingly, there were lots of substitutions, with new pitchers every inning and more. Jorge Mateo represented Oakland.
The seven inning limit came into play because the teams were tied at 2 after seven. They played an eighth inning, but in both halves a runner started on second base. This has often been suggested as a way to make the game faster, and now that I've seen it I'm not wild about it. I never did find out who the runners were on second, probably because neither scored. This led to the other change for this exhibition; since they were tied after eight innings they called it a draw. That's the first time I've been to a game that ended in a tie.
After the game there was a really impressive firework show, then I met up with M's friend Rob and his son A and guided them back to our house to crash.
I didn't get my season tickets for the game, but I was able to buy a single in the upper deck. More technically, I bought a strip of tickets, with one ticket each for the Celebrity Softball game / Futures game, one for the Home Run Derby and one for the All-Star game itself.
M and I returned from Washington, DC on Sunday, July 7 and by the time we picked up Tulip and everything else the Celebrity Software Game was already under way. I caught a ride downtown and caught the second half of it. The conceit was that a team of celebrities with some tie to Cleveland played a set of other celebrities with no Cleveland tie, hence "Cleveland vs the World", to mimic the popular t-shirt. To be perfectly honest, aside from a bunch of MLB alumni and a few other athletes like Simone Biles, I didn't recognize most of the people on either team. Well, besides Drew Carey, obviously, and Anthony Mackie. For softball they had a fence put up a decent chunk behind the infield, but far from the real fence. They played by different rules, which I mostly ignored. The World team won, which is pretty typical really for Cleveland.
After a pause to remove the fences, the All-Star Futures Game began. This featured minor leaguers from A to AAA representing every team, divided by AL vs NL. It was scheduled for only seven innings, which I assume was some sort of split between "don't overplay the rookies" and "nobody really cares about the Future Game." Unsurprisingly, there were lots of substitutions, with new pitchers every inning and more. Jorge Mateo represented Oakland.
The seven inning limit came into play because the teams were tied at 2 after seven. They played an eighth inning, but in both halves a runner started on second base. This has often been suggested as a way to make the game faster, and now that I've seen it I'm not wild about it. I never did find out who the runners were on second, probably because neither scored. This led to the other change for this exhibition; since they were tied after eight innings they called it a draw. That's the first time I've been to a game that ended in a tie.
After the game there was a really impressive firework show, then I met up with M's friend Rob and his son A and guided them back to our house to crash.