1957 Major League Baseball All-Star Game

The 1957 Major League Baseball All-Star Game was the 24th playing of the midseason exhibition baseball game between the all-stars of the American League (AL) and National League (NL), the two leagues comprising Major League Baseball. The game was held on July 9, 1957 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, Missouri, the home of the St. Louis Cardinals of the National League. The game was marked by controversy surrounding Cincinnati Reds fans stuffing the ballot box and electing all but one of their starting position players to the game. The game resulted in the American League defeating the National League 6-5.

Cincinnati Reds voting controversy
When fan voting to determine the game's starters was completed, seven Cincinnati Reds players (Ed Bailey, Johnny Temple, Roy McMillan, Don Hoak, Frank Robinson, Gus Bell and Wally Post) had been elected to start in the All-Star Game; the only non-Red elected to start for the National League was St. Louis Cardinal first baseman Stan Musial. Most baseball observers agreed that while the Reds were known to be a great offensive team with many outstanding position players, they did not deserve seven starters in the All-Star Game.

An investigation launched by Commissioner Ford Frick found that over half of the ballots cast came from Cincinnati, with the Cincinnati Enquirer printing up pre-marked ballots and distributing them with the Sunday edition of the newspaper to make it easy for Reds fans to vote often for their favourite players, while stories emerged of bars in Cincinnati refusing to serve alcohol to customers until they filled out a ballot.

Frick appointed Willie Mays of the New York Giants and Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves to substitute for Bell and Post, and to strip the fans of their voting rights; Bell was kept as a reserve, while Post was injured and would have been unable to play in any event. Managers, players, and coaches picked the entire team until 1970, when the vote again returned to the fans, and to avoid a repeat of this incident, MLB officials evenly distributed the 26 million ballots to 75,000 retail outlets and 150 minor and major league stadiums, while a special panel was also created to review the voting.