MLB All-Star Final Vote Getting Interesting
More than 10 million votes were registered after the first full day of fan voting for the 2010 Major League Baseball All-Star Final Vote (sponsored by Sprint). After that first day, New York Yankees right fielder Nick Swisher led the American League spot, while Cincinnati Reds first baseman Joey Votto led the National League. Only the top vote getter in each league will get the roster spot for the All-Star game in July 13, to be played in Anaheim.
The early returns after Day 1 had Swisher narrowly holding a lead over the likes of White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko, rival Red Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis, left fielder Damon Young of the Twins, and Michael Young, third baseman for the Rangers.
Over on the National League side, Votto also held a slim margin over worthy contenders like pitchers Heath Bell (San Diego Padres), Billy Wagner (closer for the Atlanta Braves), Rockies outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, and Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman.
The All-Star vote has seen tremendous success since it was first introduced to the public in 2002 – with over 200 million votes being recorded. After the second day of this year, there were already 22 million votes recorded.
The Day 2 vote returns show how close this voting race is going to be. In the American League, Youkilis overtook Swisher for the top spot and held on to it, while the two Youngs and Konerko are not out of the race and are still in a good position to take the number one spot – truly anyone’s game.
Senator John Kerry even encouraged his 3 million supporters to support Youkilis as a sign of being a true-blooded Red Sox fan.
In the National League, Votto continued to hold off the competition and cling to his top spot, even widening his lead and distancing himself from the others. Still, the others have a chance with voting to end on July 8.
What is even more interesting is that there seemingly are voting alliances between fans from both the AL and the NL. This is a potential reason why Youkilis surged into the lead while Votto made his lead larger.
There seems to be a group known as "the 1975 World Series," which is an alliance between the Boston Red Sox fans and the Cincinatti Reds fans. In this alliance, they would vote for Youkilis in the AL and Votto in the NL. This seems to be taking effect just by looking at the vote results thus far.
There is also another alliance, but it doesn’t look to be as strong as t"he 1975 World Series". The Third Base Ticket is a group formed by fans of the Texas Rangers and Washington Nationals, in which they would vote for third basemen Michael Young and Ryan Zimmerman.
Interestingly enough, alliances between fan bases seem to work. Last season, Brandon Inge of the Detroit Tigers and Shane Victorino of the Philadelphia Phillies won the final roster spots for each group – thanks to an alliance known as BranTorino. This could be the case this year.
Swisher has campaigned for his own self by asking his Twitter followers to vote for him. They responded when he raced out to the early lead after a day. However, it seems like "the 1975 World Series" alliance is stronger than his tweets, at least after two days.
A lot more things can still happen from this point until the end of the voting. Perhaps new alliances will be formed, or the older ones grow stronger. One thing is for certain – this 2010 All-Star Final Vote sponsored by Sprint is getting more interesting each day.
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