Stuffing The Ballot Box

Former Mayor Richard J. Daley, of Chicago, would be proud of Major League Baseball.

Today I visited Cubs.com and cast my All-Star Ballot for 2008. As a Cubs fan, I voted for several players on the team. Given the choices available, I made one or two marginal picks just to give my favorite Cub players an All-Star vote. And in the process I omitted some of the players that I really believe to be All-Stars.

After I had finished voting for players in both the National and American Leagues, they asked me if I would like to vote again. You are allowed to vote 25 times. That is 25 times per email address, not ISP.

Now if I wanted to do so, I could set up another 24 email aliases and vote a total of 625 times. Judging from the early results, I don’t doubt for a moment that some others are doing this and much more.

It’s time for Major League Baseball to revise the All-Star balloting system.

Here’s what I propose:

First and foremost – No Internet Voting!

All Active Players, Coaches and Managers would vote 1 time with a weighted value of times 25. Also they could not vote for anyone on their own team.

The Sports writers would get 1 vote each with a factor of times 20.

Each team would pick 7 home games in June to let their fans vote for their favorite players. One vote per fan per game on a cardboard ballot as was done in the old days. This would also encourage fans to come out to the Ballpark.

This system would turn All-Star Balloting into the right direction. At least until someone figured out how to stuff the Ballot Box.

Just my opinion.

The Beach Bum