MLB All-Star Game: Players, fans fell in love with swing-off - ESPN

ATLANTA — Clutching the glass bat given to the All-Star Game MVP, Kyle Schwarber walked through the National League clubhouse and chuckled to himself: He had just won the award without registering a single hit in the game.

«One good BP wins you a trophy these days,» Schwarber said.

What happened Tuesday night at the All-Star Game was unlike anything in the 94 versions that preceded it. Thanks to a change in the game's rules three years ago, baseball unveiled its version of penalty kicks in soccer or a shootout in hockey: break a tie after nine innings via a Home Run Derby-style swing-off. And there was perhaps no one on the planet better to meet the moment than Schwarber, the Philadelphia Phillies' slugger, who homered on all three of his swings in the impromptu batting-practice session to propel the NL to a 7-6 win in the Midsummer Classic.

For an All-Star Game that has grown relatively stale in recent years, larded with pitching changes and substitutions, the swing-off lent it an air of freshness and excitement. Amid all of the oddities — Atlanta Braves fans at a sold-out Truist Park cheering on a star from their hated rival, New York Mets players urging on Schwarber, all of it against the backdrop of the NL blowing a 6-0 lead — the one thing constant was Schwarber playing hero at a time of import.

As the American League blitzed back from a half-dozen-run deficit, the possibility of the swing-off was tantalizingly close — not just for the wide swath of fans who hadn't known Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association had agreed to a sudden-death All-Star Game derby but the players who had stuck around until the end of the game to bear witness to a contest teeming with pressure — particularly for an