IAL All-Star ballots are out

Rivaling our rookie draft, the Illowa APBA League All-Star Game has to be the most exciting time of the year for our league. I think there’s a simple explanation for this… those are the two times in our season that all ten of our managers are at the same table together, focusing on the same event.  There’s tension, excitement and lots of fun.

[Funny, the same goes for our yearly league meeting but my fellow managers don’t share my enthusiasm for protocol and proposals.]

But before we can have an All-Star Game we have to have All-Star teams. That’s where the balloting comes in.  We just got our All-Star ballots via email from our commissioner.  The rules are simple.  We vote using a 1-2-3 method (1 being the top vote), we vote for three outfielders each, and we cannot vote for our own players.

Commissioner Mike “Hanging Chad” Bunch’s balloting methods may not pass muster with the Electoral Commission. On the ballot, he sorts the players by “Rank” using a formula of his. That’s to help us, I think. Indeed it does. It almost makes it too easy.

This balloting will determine the starting roster.  The manager for each division will choose pitchers and reserve players.

Without disclosing my super-secret ballot TOO much, I will say this:

-My firstbaseman Albert Pujols won’t be a starter.  That may be obvious but for a while he was a shoo-in each year.  In the last couple years, he’s been overtaken by Joey Votto and Mark Teixeira.

-I found myself giving too many secondary and tertiary votes to a lot of sub-.220 hitters.  They had good stats otherwise but it does show how deep our league’s pitching is.

-Stat fiends are going sneer in disgust but I like to use runs batted in and runs scored as a barometer for how I vote.  I know it’s not trendy but it’s tangible.

-I gave my old catcher Ramon Hernandez a second place vote.  I’m amazed he’s still playing and he’s managing to hit .335 for my rivals (you’re welcome, DonS).

-I made one illogical, perhaps sentimental vote for a player because he deserves it in his own way.

The Illowa APBA League All-Star Game is scheduled for November 16th.