My All-Star

I made it to the All-Star Game. Just not the one I expected.

“You should buy it for yourself.”

I couldn’t believe my partner was encouraging me to buy a Mariners Flex Pass for the 2022 season.

I had gone to plenty of games during the exciting 2021 season, including the final three games as the Mariners came agonizingly close to ending what was then a 20-year postseason drought. It felt like the franchise was finally turning a corner, and owning even a small season ticket package had been a lifelong dream of mine. My partner knew that, which made her encouragement mean even more to me.

The Mariners Flex Pass is a wonderful season ticket arrangement. Instead of purchasing a set package of games, you essentially buy a line of credit with the team. You’re not locked into specific games or the same seats every time. Instead, you choose whatever games you want, whatever number of tickets you want, and when something comes up, you can return those tickets and get credit back to go to another game. On top of all that, you still enjoy many of the perks of being a season ticket holder, like special promotional events, postseason priority if the Mariners make it to October baseball, and, as it turned out, early access to tickets for the 2023 All-Star Week in Seattle.

I decided to do it and bought the Flex Pass, incredibly excited about all the baseball it would allow me, my son, and the rest of my family to take in together.

Fast forward nearly a year and a half, and there they were: my Home Run Derby and All-Star Game tickets sitting in my inbox. A once-in-a-lifetime baseball event was coming to town, and my son and I intended to go and share it together. I’ve never closely followed the All-Star Game, and there have been several years where I didn’t even watch it, especially since interleague play has lessened the significance of matchups that we now see routinely. But the game still always feels like a celebration of baseball itself, and crazy fan that I am, I had eagerly jumped at the chance to share in all its festivities.

But there I was clicking, “Transfer,” sending my tickets to an old friend to whom I’d sold them.

That same summer, my son was playing on the 11U Little League All-Stars team in our local league. His age group was one of the strongest our league had seen in the past several years, and they just kept winning. As each victory pushed them deeper into the tournament, their schedule crept closer and closer to the All-Star Week festivities. After a string of victories, the scheduling conflict was suddenly upon me.

If the boys won their next game, it would put them into the tournament semifinals. That meant their next game would be played at the same time Julio Rodríguez and some of baseball’s biggest stars would be swinging for the fences down in Seattle. Sure enough, they won decisively, my son pitching the final inning, setting up a semifinal matchup the next evening.

I went ahead and sold my Home Run Derby tickets.

My son and I had probably been looking forward to the Derby even more than the All-Star game itself, and several people asked what I was going to do when it became clear the Little League game would be at the same time. But in my mind, the decision had already been made, and I didn’t hesitate for even a second. My son was going to be playing baseball, and I was going to be there.

Honestly, it didn’t even feel like I had given anything up. I was somewhat surprised by that realization. A few years earlier, I couldn’t have imagined willingly giving away tickets to a major baseball event happening in my own city. But I realized then that somewhere along the way, without ever actually noticing it, the baseball games that I was most excited to watch had changed.

The boys came from behind in the semifinal and completed a beautifully turned game-ending double play to punch their ticket to the district championship.

Which, of course, was scheduled for the exact same time as the MLB All-Star Game.

I almost immediately texted the same friend who had bought my Derby tickets. Within minutes, my All-Star Game tickets were gone too.

Our boys fought for six full innings, but they came up short of grabbing a championship banner for our league.

It was my own son who made the final out. He drove a fly ball deep to left field that, off the bat, I thought might have a chance to sail over the fence. Instead, it settled into the left fielder’s glove just short of the fence, sending the other league to the state tournament.

I remember feeling my eyes begin to well up.

But it had nothing to do with the game I had missed in Seattle. It had everything to do with the one I was watching.

As a lifelong baseball fan, there are certain moments you dream about experiencing. Watching your team finally make the postseason or taking a trip to Arizona or Florida for Spring Training. Seeing an All-Star Game in your hometown. When I was younger, those felt like the moments that defined baseball.

Now the game somehow feels entirely different. Not any less exciting or significant. The baseball that captures my heart most isn’t being played in major league stadiums anymore.

Today, baseball is my son’s at-bats. It’s watching kids from our community spend June and July representing our little league in the All-Star tournament. It’s parents lining the fences, grandparents sitting in lawn chairs, volunteers working the snack shack, volunteers keeping scorebooks, and children experiencing the highest highs and lowest lows that sports can offer.

It’s watching your child do everything they can not to cry after making the final out.

The All-Stars I’m most excited to watch these days aren’t the multimillion-dollar professionals under the bright lights. They’re the kids in dirty jerseys on dusty Little League fields, chasing fly balls, lining singles into center field, and believing, even for just a few innings, that this is the biggest game in the world.

Whatever I paid for those All-Star Game tickets, I’ve never once felt like I missed out. The biggest baseball game in my world that night wasn’t being played in Seattle. It was being played twenty-five miles north.

I was watching my All-Star.