Watch: Yankees' Didi Gregorius will do anything to win the All-Star Game Final Vote
Today is the final day for fans to cast their ballots in the MLB All-Star Game Final Vote contest, as 10 players—five in each league—vie for the last spots on the American and National League rosters for the Midsummer Classic. As is the case every year, for each player, their respective teams have been engaging in all kinds of electioneering and vote jockeying this week, including partnerships with other franchises and flooding Twitter timelines with entreaties to engage with a hashtag.
That includes the Yankees, who are feverishly trying to get shortstop Didi Gregorius to Miami for this year's All-Star Game and will apparently stop at nothing to make it happen. And so, on this last day of voting, the Bronx Bombers have sent Gregorius around the city to do nice things for random New Yorkers in exchange for support on the ballot. So far on Didi's list: free Metrocard swipes for subway riders, and photos taken for tourists at Rockefeller Center.
Note in that second subway swipe video that Gregorius goes the extra mile to help a Spanish-speaking tourist find his way—a nice deed that most New Yorkers wouldn't even dream of doing, and not just because all those tourists are somehow always using maps that are wildly out of date. (Though it's also worth noting that no one in these videos agreed to vote for him; bit of a flaw in this plan, I think.)
Anyway, if you're in Manhattan today, keep an eye out for Gregorius and see if he'll hail you a cab, give you a dollar to buy a bottled water, or just help keep the costumed mascots in Times Square away from you. And if he does, consider throwing a vote his way. He's earned it.
UPDATE: Gregorius is still at it, and you can now add "make burritos for the lunch-time crowd" and "hand out umbrellas in the Financial District" to his list of charitable actions.
Next up for Didi: Fixing the subways. (Hopefully.)
