Major League Baseball All-Star Game
exhibition game played by Major League Baseball players representing each league
The Major League Baseball All-Star Game, also known as the "Midsummer Classic", is an annual professional baseball game sanctioned by Major League Baseball (MLB) and contested between the all-stars from the American League (AL) and National League (NL). Starting position players and designated hitters are selected by fans, pitchers are selected by managers, and reserves are selected by players and managers.
The game is usually played on the second or third Tuesday in July, and is meant to mark the symbolic halfway point of the MLB season (though not the mathematical halfway point, which usually falls several weeks earlier). Both leagues share an All-Star break, with no regular-season games scheduled from the day before through two days after the All-Star Game, with the exception of a single Thursday night game starting in the 2018 season. Some additional events and festivities associated with the game take place each year close to and during this break in the regular season.
No official MLB All-Star Games were held in 1945 and 2020, and no official selection of players took place, due to World War II travel restrictions and the COVID-19 pandemic, respectively. Two All-Star Games were held each season from 1959 to 1962. The most recent All-Star Game was held on July 14, 2026, at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, home of the NL's Philadelphia Phillies.
History
The earliest antecedent of the baseball all-star game was the "Great Base Ball Match of 1858", which pitted the premier amateur players of New York against rival stars from Brooklyn in front of a paying crowd.
In the early 20th century, baseball teams put on benefit games for the families of players or former players who died unexpectedly.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Major League Baseball All-Star Game” is exhibition game played by Major League Baseball players representing each league. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Major, League and Baseball, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1069698. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2018, 1945, 2020 and 1959.
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This entry incorporates text from “Major League Baseball All-Star Game” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.