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The Major League Baseball All-Star Game, also known as the "Midsummer Classic", is an annual professional baseball game sanctioned by Major League Baseball (MLB) and contested between the all-stars from the American League (AL) and National League (NL). Starting fielders are selected by fans, pitchers are selected by managers, and reserves are selected by players and managers. The game is usually played on the second or third Tuesday in July, and is meant to mark the symbolic halfway point of the MLB season (though not the mathematical halfway point, which, for most seasons, falls within the previous calendar week). Both leagues share an All-Star break, with no regular-season games scheduled from the day before through two days after the All-Star Game, with the exception of a single Thursday night game starting in the 2018 season. Some additional events and festivities associated with the game take place each year close to and during this break in the regular season. No official MLB All-Star Games were held in 1945 and 2020, and no official selection of players took place, due to World War II travel restrictions and the COVID-19 pandemic, respectively. Two All-Star Games were held each season from 1959 to 1962. The most recent All-Star Game was held on July 11, 2023, at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, home of the AL's Seattle Mariners. History Baseball teams put on benefit games for the families of players who died unexpectedly. For example, the Addie Joss Benefit Game in 1911 raised $12,914 for the Joss family ($422,288 in current dollar terms). The first All-Star Game was held on July 6, 1933, at Comiskey Park in Chicago as part of the 1933 World's Fair, and was initiated by Arch Ward, then sports editor for the Chicago Tribune, and supported by American League president Will Harridge, who lobbied baseball executives to create the event. Initially intended to be a one-time event, its success resulted in making the contest an annual one. From 1959 to 1962, two All-Star Games were held each season, in order to increase the money going to the players' pension fund. This practice ended after the owners agreed to give the players a larger share of the income from a single game. According to the Baseball Database provided by Sean Lahman, a total of 1,972 individual players have been selected for an All-Star game between 1933 and 2023. Venues MLB chooses the venue for the All-Star Game. The criteria for venue selection are subjective; generally, cities with new ballparks and those who have not hosted the Game in many years – or ever – tend to get selected. Over time, this has resulted in certain cities being selected to host more often than others. Cleveland Stadium and the original Yankee Stadium have each hosted four All-Star Games, the most of any venue, and New York City has hosted more Games than any other city, having done so nine times in five different stadiums. At the same time, the New York Mets did not host for 48 seasons (1965–2012), while the Los Angeles Dodgers did not host for 42 years, (1980–2022; They were originally chosen to host the 2020 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, but the delayed season due to the COVID-19 pandemic caused the game to be cancelled.) The Tampa Bay Rays are currently the only club yet to host an All-Star Game, and 4 other teams have never hosted the All-Star Game at their current stadium: The New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium, the Texas Rangers at Globe Life Field (although they will host in 2024), the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park (although they will host in 2026) and the Atlanta Braves at Truist Park (who were supposed to host in 2021 before the game was moved, but will host in 2025). Three teams have won the World Series in the same year their stadium hosted the All-Star Game: the 1939 New York Yankees, the 1959 Los Angeles Dodgers, and the 1977 New York Yankees. The venues traditionally alternated between the American and National Leagues every year, with an AL team hosting in an odd-numbered year and an NL club hosting in an even-numbered year. This tradition has been broken several times; the first time was in 1951, when the AL's Detroit Tigers hosted the game as part of the city's 250th birthday (corrected by the NL hosting the next two seasons). The second was when the two-game format from 1959 to 1962 resulted in the AL being one game ahead in turn. The NL hosted two straight games in 2006 and 2007 (Pittsburgh and San Francisco), and in 2021 and 2022 (in Denver and in Los Angeles). The NL also hosted four straight games from 2015 to 2018 (in Cincinnati, San Diego, Miami, and Washington). The AL is hosting two straight games in 2023 and 2024 (in Seattle and in Arlington, Texas). During the first two decades of the Game's history, there were two pairs of teams that shared ballparks. In Philadelphia, the AL's Athletics and NL's Phillies both played at Shibe Park, and in St. Louis, the AL's Browns and NL's Cardinals shared Sportsman's Park. This led to some shorter-than-usual gaps between All-Star Games played at the same venue; Sportsman's Park hosted the All-Star Game twice in eight years (the Cardinals hosted in 1940 and the Browns in 1948), while Shibe Park was the All-Star venue twice in nine years (the Athletics hosted in 1943 and the Phillies in 1952). The "home team" has traditionally been the league in which the host franchise plays its games. The lone exception has been the 2016 Game in which the AL was the "home" team, despite its being played in Petco Park, home of the NL's San Diego Padres. This was announced after the 2017 All-Star Game was awarded to Miami, marking a third straight game hosted at an NL venue. This was done because, from 2003 to 2016, the league who won the All-Star Game was given home field advantage in the World Series, and MLB did not want to allow the NL to have the last at-bat in an All-Star Game for three straight years. MLB ended this practice in 2017, and the All-Star Game reverted to having the host team's league serve as the home team. All-star team rosters Selection of managers and coaches Since 1934, the managers of the game are the managers of the previous year's league pennant winners and World Series clubs. The coaching staff for each team is selected by its manager. This honor is given to the manager, not the team, so it is possible that the All-Star manager could no longer be with the team with which he won. This happened in 2003, when Dusty Baker managed the National League team despite having moved from the National League champion San Francisco Giants to the Chicago Cubs. This has also included situations where the person is no longer actively managing a team. For the first All-Star Game, intended as a one-time event, Connie Mack and John McGraw were regarded as baseball's venerable managers, and were asked to lead the American and National League teams, respectively. McGraw came out of retirement for that purpose. Dick Williams resigned after managin.... Discover the All Star Press popular books. Find the top 100 most popular All Star Press books.