But that\u2019s how it goes when an All-Star Game gets decided by the first \u201cHome Run Swing-Off\u201d in major-league history. One minute, it\u2019s a 6-6 tie, after nine dramatic innings. The next thing you know, there\u2019s a coach winding up behind a screen in front of the mound, an impromptu Home Run Derby is unfolding and much of America is asking: What. Is. Happening?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a weird feeling when you see the (grounds-crew) guy running out from center field with the L screen (for the pitcher),\u201d said Giants pitcher Robbie Ray. \u201cYou\u2019re just like, what is going on? (National League manager) Dave Roberts came down in the ninth inning, one out, two outs. He was like, \u2018Hey, you guys won\u2019t believe this. But if this thing ends in a tie, it\u2019s going to be a home-run off.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a little weird, a little wild. But we ended up winning, so it was great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whoa. Did that man just mention the words, \u201cweird\u201d and \u201cwild?\u201d Oh yes, he did. So what does that tell us? It tells us that if there was no such thing as a Weird and Wild column, we would have to invent one just for the 95th All-Star Game, a game literally unlike any other.<\/p>\n
So what the heck\u00a0was\u00a0going on at Truist Park late on a one-of-a-kind Tuesday night? Let\u2019s dig in on all the weirdness and wildness.<\/p>\n
We just fixed baseball!![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/USATSI_26648613-scaled.jpg\")
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The NL players surround Kyle Schwarber after he blasted them to victory in the home run swing-off. (Jordan Godfree \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n
Never before had a real major-league game been decided by a home-run contest. But the league set us up for this in the last labor deal.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been in writing, in the collective bargaining agreement, for four seasons now, that if the All-Star Game was ever tied after nine innings, it would not end in a tie, it would not parade out any Zombie Runners and they would not play baseball until 3 in the morning if that\u2019s what it took.<\/p>\n
No, what would happen was what happened here: Pick the three most sweet-swinging dudes who hadn\u2019t already bailed on this game and jumped on a private plane to the Bahamas. Tell them to fire up their long-ball dreams. And whoever hit the most home runs \u2014 off a coach \u2014 would \u201ctriumph\u201d in the All-Star Game.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s how the National League came to win an All-Star Game for just the second time since 2012. Thanks to three epic Schwarbombs in three swings, the National League would outhomer the American League, 4-3. Fireworks were popping. And a bunch of NL players who were scratching their heads in mass confusion 20 minutes earlier were suddenly convinced they\u2019d just witnessed the most brilliant idea ever devised by labor lawyers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs that a good way to decide a game or a crazy way to decide a game?\u201d I asked Giants pitcher Logan Webb.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly,\u201d he replied, \u201cI\u2019ve got a group text going with a couple of other players around baseball \u2026 and they said that we should never play an extra-inning game again. Just do it like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
WEIRD AND WILD:\u00a0\u201cSo we just fixed baseball?\u201d<\/p>\n
WEBB: \u201cYeah, I think so.\u201d<\/p>\n
W&W:\u00a0\u201cBut do you think there are a bunch of old-timers out there saying: What an atrocious way to end a baseball game?\u201d<\/p>\n
WEBB:\u00a0\u201cProbably. But at the end of the day, who cares?\u201d<\/p>\n
The choices, after all, were: A) they declare this thing a tie, and somewhere Bud Selig is shrugging<\/a>, or B) both teams bring in a position player to pitch and see who can throw the most pitches under 33 mph, or C) each team gets to drag one fan out of the stands to pitch the 10th or D) hey, Home Run Derbies are fun.<\/p>\n So they voted for D. And you know what? Excellent choice. But even more excellent because \u2026<\/p>\n Kyle Schwarber is a long-ball swing-off legend! \u201cHe\u2019s always dangerous. He\u2019s never not dangerous,\u201d Pete Alonso said of swing-off stud Kyle Schwarber. (Jamie Squire \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Some men are just made for moments like this one. And by some men, we clearly mean Schwarber, whose special niche in life is whomping baseballs that are always a threat to land either in somebody\u2019s cheesesteak or in a crater on the moon \u2014 whichever gets in the way first.<\/p>\n So when his turn to whomp arrived Tuesday night, this was the situation: Brent Rooker (two home runs in his three swings) and Randy Arozarena (one) had mashed the AL to a 3-homers-to-1 lead. But the NL still had Schwarber and Mr. Home Run Derby, Pete Alonso, lined up to hit.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I heard we had Schwarber and Pete,\u201d Webb said, \u201cI just said, all right, we\u2019re going to win.\u201d<\/p>\n Except Schwarber made sure that Alonso\u2019s services wouldn\u2019t even be necessary. With his first swing, the Schwarbino smoked one of his inimitable line drives that forget to come down. It cleared the center-field fence, and this thing was on.<\/p>\n Then came an even more Schwarbombian blast \u2014 a titanic 461-foot cruise missile way, way, way up into the seats in right-center. It was now 3-3.<\/p>\n He had one more swing \u2014 and corkscrewed himself down to one knee, but still fired his final blast 382 feet into the thick of the Chop House beyond the fence in right. The NL had the lead. The AL\u2019s anchor man, Tampa Bay\u2019s hatless Jonathan Aranda, then got shut out in his three hacks. And this wild ride was over.<\/p>\n #AllStarGame<\/a> Swing-off Kyle Schwarber GIVES THE NL THE LEAD! pic.twitter.com\/NPZJciVTYn<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 MLB (@MLB) July 16, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n Asked if he knew, as he spun to one knee, that his final blast had enough oomph to go out, Schwarber said: \u201cI didn\u2019t hit it, obviously, my best. But I was thinking I got enough of it. And I was just kind of down there, hoping \u2014 saying, \u2018Go, go, go.\u2019\u00a0And it went. And it was awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n Someone else asked: \u201cDid you ever watch a soccer game decided by penalty kicks and think you, as a baseball player, could be involved in something like that?<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d never really thought about it like that,\u201d Schwarber replied. \u201cBut yeah. Definitely. Kind of. Now that you say that, makes you feel like it\u2019s a penalty kick.\u201d<\/p>\n Right. Just think of him now as Kyle Schwarber, the Cristiano Ronaldo of late-night All-Star baseball. Why the heck not. There\u2019s always something about this guy that makes his teammates believe. And they were reminded again of exactly why Tuesday, during late-night Long Ball Theater.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s dangerous,\u201d Alonso said. \u201cHe\u2019s always dangerous. He\u2019s never not dangerous. It doesn\u2019t matter how he\u2019s feeling or how he\u2019s performing. Whenever he steps in the box, he\u2019s always dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe guy\u2019s already a legend,\u201d Kyle Stowers said. \u201cThis just adds to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n But how we got here was also Weird (and Wild)<\/p>\n The National League led, 6-0, in this game, with just nine outs to go. It then coughed away all six runs of that lead. And that didn\u2019t just get them into an overtime Home Run Hack-off. It got them into the record books.<\/p>\n How many other teams in All-Star history have blown a six-run lead, whether they ended up winning or losing? That would be precisely \u2026 none,\u00a0according to my friends from STATS Perform.<\/p>\n The previous biggest lead any team had ever blown in an All-Star Game: five, in 1955<\/a>, when Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams powered the AL to a 5-0 lead with nine outs to go \u2026 and the NL came all the way back and won, 6-5, on a walk-off homer by Stan Musial \u2026 in the 13th inning.<\/p>\n But that was just how they decided All-Star Games back in the olden days, with actual baseball. And that\u2019ll never catch on now. Obviously.<\/p>\n The team that hosted that game, by the way, was \u2026 the Braves (Milwaukee version).<\/p>\n Kwan-do, Kwan-do, Kwan-do Before the swing-off blasts, Steven Kwan tied the game with a 53.9 mph infield single. (Brett Davis \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n You know what else was kinda wild (and weird)? The way the AL tied this game with two outs in the ninth \u2026 on a little squibber-ish infield single by Cleveland bat-to-ball artiste Steven Kwan that was hit, according to Statcast, with a minus-68 degree launch angle, an exit velocity of 53.9 mph, and traveled all of 3 feet on the fly.<\/p>\n It was the AL\u2019s softest-hit ball of this entire game. And the irony of a 3-foot, 53.9 mph dribbler setting up a game-deciding home run swing-off pretty much sums up the beauty of baseball. But that\u2019s not even the Weird and Wild part.<\/p>\n The Weird and Wild part is that it made Kwan only the third player in All-Star history to tie a game or give his team the lead with two outs in the ninth inning. The other two men on that list, according to STATS:<\/p>\n Ted Williams, 1941 \u2014 legendary walk-off three-run homer<\/p>\n Michael Young, 2006 \u2014 dramatic, lead-flipping two-run triple<\/p>\n Only Kwan\u2019s team would do that and lose. Then again, no home run swing-offs were involved in those other games.<\/p>\n Johnny Callison flashback alert!<\/p>\n In 1964, Johnny Callison unfurled the most famous Phillies All-Star swing of all time \u2014 a three-run walk-off homer at Shea Stadium, off the most feared reliever of that era, Boston\u2019s Dick Radatz.<\/p>\n And why would we bring that up now? Because Callison got an All-Star MVP trophy out of it \u2014 and after that, 60 consecutive years would go by without any\u00a0Phillie winning an All-Star MVP award. Not Mike Schmidt. Not Chase Utley. Not Roy Halladay. Nobody.<\/p>\n Until Kyle Schwarber, in this game<\/a>.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve already chronicled what made Schwarber such a deserving winner. Nevertheless, in the box score, you\u2019ll find him with zero hits. And would you like to guess how many All-Star MVP position players have ever gone hitless in those games? As usual, none would be the perfect guess.<\/p>\n In fact, according to one of our favorite researchers, Jessica Brand, only three pitchers\u00a0have won an All-Star MVP award in a game in which they got to the plate at least once and went hitless:<\/p>\n Roger Clemens in 1986, LaMarr Hoyt in 1985 and Don Sutton in 1977.<\/p>\n Oh, and one more thing: Call this Radatz\u2019s revenge. In those six decades when the Phillies were winning no All-Star MVPs, a bunch of Red Sox players combined to win six of them.<\/p>\n So there you go. That covers how this All-Star Game ended. But here at Weird and Wild World All-Star HQ, let\u2019s remind you it\u2019s also worth remembering \u2026<\/p>\n How this started Paul Skenes takes the mound for the second time as the All-Star starter. (Kevin C. Cox \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Paul Skenes. Perennial All-Star Game starter. At age 23. What a concept.<\/p>\n We didn\u2019t actually need Skenes to start back-to-back All-Star Games to know he was one of those dudes who isn\u2019t like all the other dudes. But now that he\u2019s done that, let\u2019s take a look at just how incredible this is.<\/p>\n Bob Gibson was no Paul Skenes!\u00a0It seems at least slightly incomprehensible that Skenes has started more All-Star Games than Bob Gibson. But here we are.<\/p>\n Gibson started only one of these games, in 1972, at 36 years old. Will Skenes have started like nine of these by the time he turns 36? Get back to us on that. But in the meantime, you should also digest this: Skenes has already started more All-Star Games than this esteemed group:<\/p>\n Clayton Kershaw (one) And don\u2019t even ask how many pitching legends never started any All-Star Games. Is the Land of the Legends where Skenes is headed? He\u2019s off to an excellent start.<\/p>\n Randy Johnson was no Paul Skenes!\u00a0Not to throw shade at the Big Unit, since I just picked his name out of my random name-drop cap. But here is where Skenes separates himself from Johnson at this young age.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2225300855-scaled.jpg\")
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AL \u2013 3
NL \u2013 4<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/USATSI_26648367-scaled.jpg\")
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Catfish Hunter (one)
Sandy Koufax (one)
Pedro Martinez (one)
Nolan Ryan (one)
Tom Seaver (one)
Gerrit Cole (one)<\/p>\n
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