PHILADELPHIA – Since the 1930s, baseball fans have marked summer’s midpoint by the All-Star Game, reliably played in the first two weeks of July at least once a year save for 1945.
This year is no different, and here in Philadelphia, the excitement was palpable after a 30-year absence. Everywhere you looked in Center City – including tours of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell Center – fans were attired in the logo of their favorite teams, though unsurprisingly, the loopy maroon ‘P’ on baby blue of the hometown Phillies predominated.
The last time the All-Star Game came to Philadelphia, the Phillies still played on artificial turf in the concrete donut that was Veterans Stadium, the internet was still accessed via modem, American society was untethered from cell phones and the agate page of the sports section still ran the standings and box scores from all of yesterday’s games every single day. Which is to say, a lot has changed in 30 years since 1996. The Vet is gone, so too, largely, is the agate page, and unfortunately, a lot of the excitement surrounding the All-Star Game,
For the majority of my childhood and into my college years, the All-Star Game was appointment viewing for baseball fans. It provided the rare opportunity to see American League pitchers face National League hitters, and vice versa, in the years before interleague play finally began in 1997, giving us moments ranging from Carl Hubbell’s five consecutive strikeouts in 1934, where he fanned Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Joe Cronin, Pete Rose demolishing Ray Fosse at the plate in 1970, Bo Jackson’s leadoff home run in 1989, or, on the humorous side, John Kruk’s at-bat against Randy Johnson in 1993.
The rise of interleague play has taken a lot of the significance of the All-Star Game away, and what it hasn’t taken away, the realities of modern baseball have. Too often, the best starting pitchers don’t pitch, either because their teams don’t want them to pitch in an exhibition game or because it would throw off their spot in the rotation, and injuries to the best players in the game turn the All-Star Game into a Mostly-Star Game.
This year’s list of injured stars includes Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., three of the most fearsome hitters in baseball, plus Minnesota Twins’ outfielder Byron Buxton and Athletics first baseman Nick Kurtz, who was the AL Rookie of the Year last season. Not pitching? Paul Skenes, Jacob Misiorowski, Chase Burns and Cam Schlittler – four of the most exciting young pitchers MLB has seen in a while.
Mike Sielski, a sports columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, asked rhetorically in his column Tuesday morning, “If the stars everyone wants to see don’t play, does the All-Star Game still make a sound?” It does, but the sound it makes is something akin to having Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap join a symphony orchestra.
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Philadelphia, of course, is a sports town, one of just seven cities with teams in all four major leagues, and one with a reputation: Fans here are known for burning garbage in the infamous 700 level of Veterans Stadium to stay warm, cheering as injured Dallas Cowboys receiver Michael Irvin was stretched off the turf, throwing objects at J.D. Drew because he refused to sign with the Phillies after they drafted him second overall in the 1997 MLB draft and snowballs at Santa just because.
So of course the Philly-heavy crowd booed the top vote-getters, Toronto Blue Jays infielder Ernie Clement and Los Angeles Dodgers super star Shohei Ohtani, as well as all the out-of-town mascots, starting with Stomper, the Athletics elephant and going through every single one, saving the biggest, loudest boos of all for Mr. and Mrs. Met.
With the mascots out of the way, player introductions brought a new round of booing from the Love City fans, with the loudest, most boisterous boos reserved for Juan Soto of the Mets and the five Atlanta Braves players named to this year’s game.
The only non-Phillie to draw cheers? Angels center fielder Mike Trout, who grew up a Phillies fan across the river in New Jersey before winning the 2012 AL Rookie of the Year and three AL MVP awards across his 16-year career. For Trout, this year’s All-Star Game, his first since 2023, was a homecoming, as the Angels only visit Philadelphia every other year, and will host the Phillies in Anaheim in late August this season.
But the players, largely, embraced the booing, though White Sox first baseman Munetaka Murakami did appear a bit befuddled. Fans in Japan cheer respectfully; there’s not a lot of booing on the other side of the Pacific.
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As far as the game went, the American League got three runs in the first, loading the bases with two outs when Bobby Witt Jr. walked and then getting two runs on a single by New York Yankees right fielder Cody Bellinger and another on a single by Yankees first baseman Ben Rice.
The junior circuit added another in the top of the eighth when Miguel Vargas hit a 433-foot tape-measure solo homer into the second deck in left field to give the AL a 4-0 lead.
Meanwhile, the AL pitchers stifled the National League’s lineup, with 11 pitchers combining to hold the NL to just three hits, the last of which came with two outs in the ninth, and walking just two. The NL never got a runner into scoring position.
The reality, of course, is that the All-Star Game is an exhibition – there’s no great value beyond pride in winning, as home field in the World Series has been determined by regular season record for a decade now – so if you’re looking for intense, competitive, meaningful baseball, well, you won’t find it at the midsummer classic.
But what I did find, sitting up in Section 304, high above right field, a short walk across South 11th Street from the site of Veterans Stadium, where I first saw the green artificial turf of a big league ballpark, was a celebration.
A celebration of the nation that was founded a few miles north of Citizens Bank Park, a celebration of the national pastime that binds us together across a vast country and an equally vast history, and a celebration of the joy of youth that baseball renews in all of us.
During a break in the action midway through the game, a well-produced montage of kids on bicycles that evoked the 1993 film The Sandlot culminated with the kids riding their bikes onto the field, ditching them on the outfield grass and infield dirt and playing catch with the NL All-Stars as fireworks lit up the night sky.
Here was that Sandlot-esque break in the MLB All-Star Game, featuring fireworks and Ray Charles' rendition of "America the Beautiful," as it looked on the Fox broadcast. ⚾️?pic.twitter.com/5LfgaoASb2
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 15, 2026
The last time the All-Star Game was here in Philadelphia, I was too young to drive and still rode a bike to school and practice, often ditching it on its side behind a dugout or in front of my house where it would wait until I picked it up again to go on to the next thing on the schedule.
Finally, I’d made it to the All-Star Game, perhaps not the way I hoped to 40 years ago, and I still felt the same joy I remembered from watching the All-Star Game on our giant Sears tv in New Jersey years ago. As the fireworks went off around me, lighting up the humid summer night, I smiled through a tear or two at the memories evoked, content, for a moment, that I could both feel my age and joy simultaneously without bitterness or regret.
Photo: Singer Patti LaBelle performs the national anthem ahead of the MLB baseball All-Star Game between the American League and National League, Tuesday, July 14, 2026, in Philadelphia.(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
