Oops! All-Star scoreboard has rough night in Cleveland
Published 10:33 pm Wednesday, July 10, 2019
By Ben Walker
AP Baseball Writer
CLEVELAND (AP) — The only errors on the scoreboard at the All-Star Game were by the scoreboard.
At least one player noticed — and wasn’t too pleased.
The giant board at Progressive Field was filled with mistakes Tuesday night, including a couple of misspelled names, a wrong picture and a pair of incorrect team logos.
“They had what, two weeks to get ready for this? That can’t happen,” New York Mets sparkplug Jeff McNeil said.
McNeil is leading the majors with a .349 batting average, an impressive feat seeing how he made his major league debut less than a year ago.
A late sub, he came up for the National League in the eighth inning and noticed the headshot on the scoreboard wasn’t of him. Instead, it was of Mets teammate Jacob deGrom.
“That was tough, to see deGrom’s picture up there,” McNeil said. “I didn’t really like that.”
“I wanted to see my picture up there. I know my family did, too. What are you going to do? I guess, but I don’t think that should happen,” he said.
David Dahl didn’t fare any better. The Colorado outfielder batted right before McNeil and was listed on the scoreboard as “Davis Dahl.”
Same for Chicago Cubs catcher Willson Contreras. A starter, his first name was missing a letter and spelled “Wilson.”
Big-hitting Cody Bellinger plays for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Ketel Marte is with the Arizona Diamondbacks, but when the starting lineups were shown, they both appeared with the logo of the Atlanta Braves.
The American League won 4-3 and neither team was charged with an error.
“I don’t think there was a lot of mistakes on either side,” said NL manager Dave Roberts of the Dodgers.
Not on the field, anyway.
“When I saw deGrom’s face, I was confused. I know there were a couple of others, too,” McNeil said.
“That gives me motivation to make it next year,” he said. “Maybe next time, they’ll get my picture right.”
The Indians apologized for the snafus Wednesday.
“We are very excited about the positive reaction we’ve received about All-Star Week events in Cleveland,” the team said in a statement. “It was obviously unfortunate about the scoreboard miscues and we apologize those occurred.”