Cincinnati voting controversy
The first and largest voting scam that baseball had every seen happened in 1957, only a decade after fan voting had been put in place. It was set to be the 24th All-Star Game that Major League Baseball between the American League and National League all stars. Fans of the Cincinnati Reds stuffed the ballot boxes with members of their team, to the point that seven members of the team got the most votes.
It showed how weak the selection system was at that time, and would lead to changes being made that would better elect players into playing on the all star team.
How it Started
Every position player (except for the first baseman) for the Reds led the voting for the National League, leading to rumors of ballot stuffing on the part of
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He also found that there was a conspiracy going on that involved bars, newspapers, and restaurants. Cincinnati bars would not serve patrons drinks unless the patrons first submitted a filled out ballots selecting members of the Reds. A Cincinnati paper (Cincinnati Enquirer) made up ballots that were already made up, selecting the Reds in their Sunday paper to allow fans an easier way to vote
The repercussions
Ford Frick decided that he did not want to mess with the starting team too much, but did replace two players with Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, who were the most popular players in the National League at that time. Aaron and Mays replaced Gus Bell (center field) and Wally Post (right field).
That still meant that five Reds made the team, one over Ernie Banks and the other over Eddie Matthews. The American League would win, after a wild ninth inning, with a final score of 6-5. The game was played at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, in front of 30,693 baseball fans. At the time, the American League had only won one of the last seven All Star