Ali To Throw Out 1st Pitch at ASG

[Crash Course]

There are probably 20 baseball-related people being snubbed by taking Ali.

Light the torch at the Olympics, fine.
Do we need to salute a boxer at a baseball game?

[KCBOOMER]

A very bad choice, but we will leave the politics for others.

[Deep Blue]

Just a bizarre choice. So many others would seem to be better choices.

[Crash Course]

It would only make sense if the game was in Louisville, KY.

[mgoettsche]

I might be missing something, but how often do they have a baseball figure throw out the opening pitch during the All-Star game?

Ali might not be the best choice (can he get it close to the plate???), but as one of America's icons, it's certainly not too far out there. I would have preferred a hometown hero (Ryan? an astronaut? Hakeem? Ken Lay?), but short of that, I'm fine with Ali.

[Crash Course]

Big difference from Ali to say, Ted Williams (like in Fenway).
Nolan Ryan would not be the worst choice for a game in Texas.

[mgoettsche]

Big difference from Ali to say, Ted Williams (like in Fenway).
Nolan Ryan would not be the worst choice for a game in Texas.

Totally agree. But of course, Ted Williams at Fenway occurred when baseball was putting on perhaps its biggest All-Star game ever with commemorating the greatest players to ever play the game. Totally different scale from your average, run of the mill ASG.

I'm just wondering who threw out the opening pitch in some of the other games. What I've found is that famous ballplayers are often named in games recaps when they throw out the first pitch (ie Williams '99, Aaron '00, Schmidt '96), whereas other game recaps don't offer the names of the cermonial first pitcher. This leads me to believe that other years the honoree is often not baseball related (probably mayor or president of some local corporation). I did see that Tricky Dick threw out the first pitch in 1958 when the game was held in Baltimore, so there's clearly precedent for a non-baseball figure to throw out the pitch.

[Crash Course]

I'd even be fine with a "non-baseball" person - as long as it was not a person from another sport.

If it has to be another sport person, make it someone from that state, or connected to that state.

But, that's just my :2cents: