Rob Manfred: MLB won't cancel the 2028 All-Star Game for the Olympics
Major League Baseball will not cancel its 2028 All-Star Game in order to participate in the Los Angeles Olympics, Commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday.
Manfred said representatives of the league and LA28 met Monday, with both sides hoping to work toward an agreement in which major leaguers would play in the Olympics. MLB has declined to stop its season for previous Olympic baseball tournaments, so minor leaguers and college players have participated in those Games.
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But Manfred also warned that any agreement likely would apply only to the L.A. Games, where major leaguers could be done in a week. If baseball remains on the Olympic schedule for Brisbane in 2032, MLB would remain reluctant to shut down for the extended period needed to get players to Australia, allow them to prepare and play, and then return to their major league teams.
'I think that the idea of playing in L.A. in '28, regardless of the possibility of ongoing Olympic participation in another location, that there is some merit to it,' Manfred said at a meeting of the Baseball Writers Assn. of America.
Read more: Shaikin: The NFL has committed players to the L.A. Olympics. So why hasn't MLB?
'I think it is an opportunity to market the game on a really global stage. I think, obviously, because it is in the U.S., the logistics of it are easier.'
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On Monday, LA28 announced that baseball would be played July 15-20, 2028, intended as an inducement for MLB to minimize schedule disruption by skipping the All-Star Game for that year and switching to the Olympics in the same week.
Manfred indicated the league's preference would be to play the All-Star Game in its usual window, then compete in the Olympics and resume the regular season.
"It's doable," Manfred said. "They put out a schedule. They tell you it's not going to move. We'll see whether there is any movement on that.
'It is possible to play the All-Star game in its normal spot, have a single break that would be longer, but still play 162 games without bleeding into the middle of November. It would require significant accommodations, but it is possible.'
Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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USA Today
23 minutes ago
- USA Today
MLB All-Star winners and losers: Dramatic mini HR derby spices up festivities
ATLANTA – If you're the sort who enjoys plotting the demise of baseball – and, in a grander sense, Western Civilization – then it all was neatly summed up by one moment in the wee hours at Truist Park. A line drive striking the faux brick just to the right of a FanDuel advertisement, a crucial moment in a home-run hitting contest intended to pump life in a once culturally-dominant Midsummer Classic that now claws for viability in the attention economy. A little heavy, eh? Well, that's sort of how it felt when this 95th All-Star Game went to extra innings and was decided for the first time by a swing-off, which replaced the mega-roster to ensure there'd be plenty of pitchers for extra innings, which replaced How The Game Once Was, at least until it ended in a tie before a befuddled Bud Selig in 2002. Yet the game always seems to win, thanks in large part to the stars in the arena that seem to produce spectacular feats, regardless of format. On this night, it was Kyle Schwarber's three homers in three swings that stood up for a National League 'victory' after American Leaguer Jonathan Aranda's bullet line drive hit brick and not seats. When Aranda followed with a harmless pop fly that sent the NL into a bobbing mass of celebration down the first base line, they were 7-6 victors (4-3 on penalty swings). Somehow, it all worked out. That could be a theme for an All-Star week that was at times grim and sweaty and confusing and at others fresh and fun. With that, the winners and losers from All-Star Week in the A (or at least Cobb County): Winners Tiebreaker swing-off The various buttons MLB pushes in the Rob Manfred era often serve two purposes: Teeth-gnashing followed by pragmatic acceptance. It was fascinating to discover that everyone from casuals in your contacts list to superstars on the field had no idea – 'I honestly had no clue this was a thing,' says Giants pitcher Logan Webb – what was to come. Yet the swing-off – the derby after the Derby, if you will – has been on the books since 2022. They just hadn't had to break the glass yet in case of emergency, and Tuesday that emergency was Robert Suarez and Edwin Diaz blowing a two-run ninth-inning NL lead. While extra-inning baseball has its charms, there can be a certain death march element to it. And in an All-Star Game, it honestly comes down to leftover pitchers trying to get out batters who hadn't yet hopped a private jet to their final All-Star break destinations. Nah, we weren't exactly 'robbed' of drama not seeing Shane Smith and Hunter Goodman clash in the bottom of the 11th, just one scenario had managers not had the freedom to burn all their pitchers before game's end. And while roughly half the 41,702 in attendance had departed, those that remained were plenty engaged by the oohs and ahhs of the swing-off. Kyle Schwarber The baddest dude on the first-place Philadelphia Phillies is seemingly universally respected in the game, and his ability to take three batting practice pitches and put them all in the seats – with a result literally on the line – goes to his superior skill and ability to focus. That man is a free agent at the end of the year, and his late-night power show, even coming in a fake game, nicely illustrated why he'll be paid superstar money, and not DH money. Players who like playing baseball If the swing-off exposed anything to the casual fan, it's that the All-Star starters – typically the game's biggest superstars – have long beaten a hasty path to the airport by game's end. Hey, they got places to be and money to burn and it is their break time. That's why teams lock in their three swing-off participants ahead of time, knowing who will be around in a 10th inning – and no, it almost surely won't be Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. But anytime he's on the roster, Mets slugger Pete Alonso counts himself in. The two-time Home Run Derby champion is both an avid competitor and a ball enthusiast. And there's something of a difference between dudes who both love baseball and are very good at it, and those for whom the latter is the only qualifier. That's not to say the players that begged off this All-Star Game – ultimately more than 80 were named to the rosters – don't love it. Rest is important and unpublicized injuries are very real. But it never hurts to have stars who want to be here. 'It's an honor for me,' says Alonso. 'Certain guys, if they're banged up, it's situational. But I'm healthy and I'm appreciative and it's a great event. For me, it's a no-brainer to come.' Cal Raleigh Sometimes, a player will have his star-is-born year and back it up at an All-Star Game expected to serve as his platform – think Judge in 2017. Raleigh roared into the break with an AL record 38 first-half homers, the curiosity of being a switch-hitting catcher outslugging Judge and the best nickname in the game – and backed all of it up. His Home Run Derby championship was both a compelling tale and a remarkable feat, and gives the game a legitimate star in a Pacific Northwest outpost that too often gets ignored. Dino Ebel He might be the greatest batting-practice pitcher of all time, or at least the most decorated. Ebel has been the soft tosser for two Home Run Derby champions – Vladimir Guerrero Sr. in 2007 and Teoscar Hernández in 2024 – and as the clock neared midnight Tuesday he climbed halfway up the Truist Park mound and tossed cookies to Stowers and Schwarber. Four of the six pitches ended up in the seats. 'Put a 'W' next to Dino's name in the paper,' says Dodgers and NL manager Dave Roberts, whom Ebel serves as third base coach. 'Well, there's no more papers anymore, but Dino should get the win. Absolutely." That's only the half of it. Sunday night, Ebel's son Brady was drafted 32nd overall by Milwaukee, and he has another lad, Trey, who is a well-regarded prospect for the 2026 draft. Let's just say mid-July has been very good to the Ebel clan. Losers The MLB draft It remains Manfred's pet project, and the optics are good holding it in conjunction with All-Star Week. Enough space fillers wearing overpriced Fanatics gear are willing to fill up the couple hundred chairs to create a well-crafted television show. And sliding the draft into the most desirable television slot in the sport – supplanting Sunday Night Baseball for a night – will ensure its ratings will be sufficient even if the in-person product resembles a Potemkin Village. Yet it's an undeniable setback that exactly zero prospects showed up all dressed up for the show and ready to grip and grin with Manfred. They certainly have their reasons, be it advisors who prefer they not forfeit leverage with drafting teams, to the greater uncertainty involved with baseball's draft compared to its NFL and NBA cohorts. No one wants to get stuck in a green room for a couple hours, especially an 18-year-old whose reps might be haggling over bonus pool money right up to the moment they'd be picked. Manfred is perhaps the only baseball official who wants to drag the process into mid-July, putting scouting departments, front offices, college coaches and, of course, the players in flux deep into the summer when the whole thing could be done in early June. Pat McAfee, or whoever decided to loop him into the festivities That was weird. What's usually a pretty rote process – the pregame All-Star press conference where starting pitchers and lineups are announced got a startling charge when McAfee, ESPN's sleeveless ambassador to the Coveted Young Demographic, was on stage to moderate the session. It's tough to fake baseball, and while McAfee did all right, the entire presser was simply bizarre. It helped that Paul Skenes' presence enabled McAfee to lean into his Yinzer shtick, yet couldn't save him from mispronouncing Ketel Marte. And an inquiry from a reporter on baseball's unexplained decision to move the game back to Atlanta after onerous voting laws were passed – and Roberts' general abdication of stances on social issues important to Dodgers fans – resulted in McAfee trying to parry the whole exchange. He was also tapped to intro the participants in that night's Home Run Derby, which is among ESPN's most important broadcasts all year. The whole thing smacked of the erstwhile Worldwide Leader signing all its inventory over to McAfee, and MLB eagerly (desperately?) hoping to cash in some of that cultural currency. The Phillies Hey, they're on the clock for the next All-Star Week and the pressure is mounting. The game comes less than two weeks after the country's Semiquincentennial, and there may not be enough red, white and blue to out-America all the Midsummer Classics that came before it. Also, Kyle Schwarber is a free agent. As this 95th game showed, some things you just can't let get away.
Fox Sports
24 minutes ago
- Fox Sports
Cal Raleigh successful as 4 of 5 challenges reverse calls in first All-Star use of robot umpire
Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Cal Raleigh was just as successful with the first robot umpire All-Star challenge as he was in the Home Run Derby. Seattle's catcher signaled for an appeal to the Automated Ball-Strike System in the first inning of the National League's win Tuesday night, getting a strikeout for Detroit's Tarik Subal on San Diego's Manny Machado. 'You take 'em any way you can get 'em, boys,' Skubal said on the mound. Four of five challenges of plate umpire Dan Iassogna's calls were successful in the first All-Star use of the ABS system, which could make its regular-season debut next year. Athletics rookie Jacob Wilson won as the first batter to call for a challenge, reversing a 1-0 fastball from Washington's MacKenzie Gore in the fifth inning that had been called a strike. Miami's Kyle Stowers lost when ABS upheld a full-count Andres Munoz fastball at the bottom of the zone for an inning-ending strikeout in the eighth. Mets closer Edwin Diaz earned a three-pitch strikeout against Randy Arozarena to end the top of the ninth on a pitch Iassogna thought was outside. Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk used ABS to get a first-pitch strike on a 100.1 mph Aroldis Chapman offering to Brendan Donovan with two outs in the bottom half. 'The fans enjoy it. I thought the players had fun with it,' NL manager Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers said. 'There's a strategy to it, if it does get to us during the season. But I like it. I think it's good for the game.' Skubal had given up Ketel Marte's two-run double and retired the Dodgers' Freddie Freeman on a groundout for his first out when he got ahead of Machado 0-2 in the count. Skubal threw a 89.5 mph changeup, and Iassogna yelled" 'Ball down!' Raleigh tapped his helmet just before Skubal tipped his cap, triggering a review by the computer umpire that was tested in spring training this year and could be adopted for regular-season use in 2026. 'Obviously, a strike like that it was, so I called for it and it helped us out,' Raleigh said. An animation of the computer analysis was shown on the Truist Park scoreboard and the broadcast. Roberts laughed in the dugout after the challenge. 'I knew it was a strike,' Machado said. Skubal doesn't intend to use challenges during regular-season games if the ABS is put in place. He says he'll rely on his catchers. 'I was joking around that I was going to burn two of them on the first balls just so that way we didn't have them the rest of the game,' he said. 'I'm just going to assume that it's going to happen next year.' Before the game, baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred indicated the sport's 11-man competition committee will consider the system for next season. "I think the ability to correct a bad call in a high-leverage situation without interfering with the time of game because it's so fast is something we ought to continue to pursue,' Manfred said. ABS decisions may have an error of margin up to a half-inch. 'Our guys do have a concern with that half inch, what that might otherwise lead to particularly as it relates to the number of challenges you may have, whether you keep those challenges during the course of the game,' union head Tony Clark told the Baseball Writers Association of America. 'Does there need to be some type of buffer zone consideration? Or do we want to find ourselves in a world where it's the most egregious misses that we want focus in on?' Manfred sounded less concerned. 'I don't believe that technology supports the notion that you need a buffer zone,' he said. 'To get into the idea that there's something that is not a strike that you're going to call a strike in a review system, I don't know why I would want to do that.' MLB sets the top of the automated strike zone at 53.5% of a batter's height and the bottom at 27%, basing the decision on the midpoint of the plate, 8 1/2 inches from the front and 8 1/2 inches from the back. That contrasts with the rule book zone called by umpires, which says the zone is a cube. 'We haven't even started talking about the strike zone itself, how that's going to necessarily be measured, and whether or not there are tweaks that need to be made there, too," Clark said. "So there's a lot of discussion that still needs to be had, despite the fact that it seems more inevitable than not.' Manfred has tested ABS in the minor leagues since 2019, using it for all pitches and then switching to a challenge system. Each team gets two challenges and a successful challenge is retained. Only catchers, batters and pitchers can call for a challenge. 'Where we are on ABS has been fundamentally influenced by player input,' he maintained. "If you had two years ago said to me: What do the owners want to do? I think they would have called every pitch with ABS as soon as possible. That's because there is a fundamental, very fundamental interest in getting it right, right? We owe it to our fans to try to get it right because the players as I talked to them over a couple of years really, expressed a very strong interest or preference for the challenge system that we decided to test." Skubal wondered is all contingencies had been planned for. 'If power goes out and we don't have ABS — sometimes we don't have Hawk-Eye data or Trackman data. So what's going to happen then?' he said. 'Are we going to expect umpires to call balls and strikes when it's an ABS zone?' ___ AP MLB: recommended Item 1 of 1
Los Angeles Times
27 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
‘Put a ‘W' next to Dino's name.' NL wins All-Star Game swing-off, with help from Dino Ebel
Technically, there was no winning pitcher in Major League Baseball's 95th All-Star Game. The man who gave up the night's biggest swings, however, was probably as deserving as any. As the American League stormed back from a 6-0 deficit in Tuesday's Midsummer Classic, a rarely contemplated reality started to dawn in both dugouts. Three years ago, MLB changed its rules for how to break ties in its annual marquee event, instituting a home run 'swing-off' to be conducted at the conclusion of the ninth inning. Each team selected three players, who each got three swings. Whichever team hit the most home runs in those nine swings wins the game. It was penalty kicks for baseball. A hockey shootout on the diamond. The only difference, though, was that this sport's version required a coach to take part in the action. Enter Dino Ebel — veteran Dodgers' third base coach — and, now, victorious pitcher in the inaugural All-Star Game swing-off. 'What an exciting moment, I think, for baseball, for all the people that stayed, who watched on television, everything,' Ebel said, after teeing up the NL hitters for a 4-3 win in the home run swing-off, and a 7-6 win overall in the All-Star Game. 'That was pretty awesome to be a part of … I had like 10 throws just to get loose. And then it's like, 'Let's bring it on.' ' Indeed, in an event that can often go stale once starters get removed in the early innings, the finish to Tuesday's game energized both the stands and the dugouts, with players from both teams emptying onto the field and wildly cheering each swing. 'That was like the baseball version of a shootout or extra time,' said Philadelphia Phillies star Kyle Schwarber, who went 3-for-3 in his turn at the plate to ultimately lift the NL to the win, and earn All-Star Game MVP honors for himself. 'It was really fun. I credit the guys on our side, who were really into it.' 'First time in history we got to do this,' added Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts, who was previously 0-3 as an All-Star Game manager before Tuesday's dramatic conclusion. 'I think it played pretty well tonight.' Perhaps the greatest twist: In the middle of it all was Ebel, a 59-year-old base coach who, as a utility infielder from 1988 to 1994 in the Dodgers' minor-league system, never advanced past triple-A. In addition to his duties as third base coach and outfield instructor for the Dodgers, Ebel is something of a batting practice specialist these days. He's thrown it on a daily basis to Dodgers hitters ever since the team hired him in 2019, and as a staff member with the Angels for years before that. He has pitched for four different players in the Home Run Derby, including Albert Pujols, Vladimir Guerrero and Teoscar Hernández's win in Texas last year. Ebel and Schwarber even had previous history of doing batting practice together, back when Ebel was a coach on Team USA's 2023 World Baseball Classic squad two years prior. 'He's got great BP,' Schwarber said. 'A lot of credit goes to him, just kind of getting thrown into the firestorm there and not being rattled by it, being able to keep pumping really good strikes to us.' By the time Schwarber came up in the second round of the swing-off, the NL was in somewhat dicey position. Brent Rooker of the A's started the event off with two home runs for the AL. Kyle Stowers of the Miami Marlins and Randy Arozarena of the Seattle Mariners each traded one, leaving the AL ahead 3-1. And while Schwarber is one of the league's most feared sluggers, with 30 long balls this year and 314 in his career, he said he rarely takes actual batting practice on the field, leaving him admittedly 'a little nervous' as strolled to the dish. 'I think the first swing was kind of the big one,' Schwarber said. 'I was just really trying to hit a line drive, versus trying to hit the home run. Usually, that tends to work out — especially in games.' As Schwarber was preparing for his round, he and Ebel discussed where exactly he wanted the ball thrown. 'I'm gonna go left-center to center field,' Schwarber told Ebel. 'So just throw it down the middle.' Three thunderous swings later, Schwarber had put the NL in front with three towering blasts. 'This was putting it more on the line,' Ebel said of Tuesday's format, which unlike the Home Run Derby or daily BP, required more patience and precision with each player permitted only three swings. 'Like right now, you're gonna win it or you're gonna lose it. And we won it.' Indeed, when the Tampa Bay Rays' Jonathan Aranda suffered an 0-fer that culminated in a pop-up, the NL team swarmed Schwarber, who then sought out Ebel and embraced him with a hug. 'A lot of credit goes to him for the National League bringing it home,' Schwarber reiterated. 'Put a 'W' next to Dino's name in the paper,' Roberts echoed. 'Dino should get the win, absolutely.' This week was memorable for Ebel even before Tuesday's swing-off. On Sunday morning, he flew home early from the Dodgers' road series in San Francisco to be with his son, Brady, for the MLB Draft. From their living room, the Ebel family celebrated after Brady was selected 32nd overall by the Milwaukee Brewers, then packed up and headed for Ontario International Airport to catch a red-eye flight Sunday for Atlanta. And after getting in early on Monday morning, Ebel had been going non-stop around All-Star festivities, joining his fellow Dodgers coaches (who made up the honorary NL staff after winning the pennant last year) for media appearances, throwing batting practice in a pre-Home Run Derby workout on Monday and, as it turned out, doing it again with Tuesday's game in the balance. 'It's pretty high adrenaline going for me right now,' Ebel said from the NL clubhouse postgame. 'I haven't gotten too much sleep. But right now, I feel like I've slept for days. Because I'm wired up.'
