MLB Commissioner Fails to Follow Through on Promise to Chicago Cubs
Wrigley Field was passed over yet again in a bid for the 2024 MLB All-Star Game.
It has been 32 years since the Chicago Cubs played host to the "Midsummer Classic", and it will be a minimum of 35 years years between games if the Cubs are the next awarded team.
On Thursday, MLB announced that the Texas Rangers' Globe Life Field in Arlington, TX will play host to the 2024 All-Star Game after a trip to T-Mobile Park in Seattle for 2023.
The Philadelphia Phillies' Citizens Bank Park will host the 2026 All-Star Game, during the semiquincentennial (the 250th anniversary) in America's birth place.
Thus, the next chance for Wrigley Field to host the All-Star Game is 2025, a decade after the renovations that seemed to make an All-Star stop at Wrigley a certainty.
Even MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred took notice. In 2016, he had a chance to speak on Chicago's 670 the Score's "Inside the Clubhouse".
"It makes sense the Cubs get an opportunity ahead after the new renovations are complete," Manfred said. "This will provide the Cubs and Ricketts family a chance to showcase the unbelievable renovation they are in the midst of doing for Wrigley Field. Timing wise, we have the schedule of cities set through Washington [in 2018]. We will have an open and complete competition for the All-Star Game beyond that time."
It has been six years since those comments and they have proven to be empty words.
Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweeted Thursday that Wrigley is a leading candidate for the 2025 All-Star Game, but MLB's recent unsympathetic behavior towards Chicago has cast doubt on the truth of these rumors.
Wrigley Field hosted All-Star Games in 1947, 1962 and 1990. There have been 95 All-Star venues ever played or announced. Even if there were 30 MLB teams for the entirety of Wrigley Field's history — which there weren't — doesn't one All-Star Game every 30 years in America's most beloved ballpark seem a little bit disrespectful?
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