Next year, the Mets home will field an all star at every position.
Commissioner Bud Selig, Mets owner Fred Wilpon and Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that Citi Field will host the 2013 MLB All-Star Game at a press conference Wednesday, May 16. This marks the ninth time the Midsummer Classic will be played in the city.
“Next year’s All-Star Game is going to demonstrate once again that there’s no place like New York for world-class sporting events,” said Bloomberg. “Major League Baseball clearly recognizes this, since they’re bringing the All-Star Game back to New York for the second time in just five years.”
Yankee Stadium held the game in 2008, its final season.
The Mets last played host to the annual gathering of the game’s greatest players in Shea Stadium’s inaugural season 1964.
That game featured Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Sandy Koufax, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Frank Robinson. The National League pushed across four runs in the ninth and won thanks to a Johnny Callison walk-off home run.
“It’s a great honor for everyone at the Mets to host the 2013 All-Star Game at Citi Field,” said Wilpon, who has “dreamed about this” for quite a while.
Queens baseball fans anxiously await the game that decides home field advantage for the World Series.
“I went to the All-Star Fan Fest when it was at Yankee Stadium, and it was pretty cool,” said Corona resident Edwin Rodriguez, a die-hard Mets fan. “So I’m excited about going to that again and just representing the fan’s here now it’s coming to Citi Field.”
“I want to go to the whole thing,” he said. “I want to go to the home run derby.”
The game and home run derby will be part of a “five day celebration of [the] great sport,” Selig said, adding that more events will be announced for the festivities that will run between July 12 and the game on Tuesday, July 16.
The “big news for baseball fans” will also provide the city with $192 million in economic impact and draw more than 175,000 visitors to the city, Bloomberg said who received two Mets jerseys with All Star and New York emblazoned across the back above the number 13 from Wilpon.
“I plan to go,” said Joshua Fermin. “If [my friends] are going to come with me I’ll definitely be there.”
— Additional reporting by Liam La Guerre
