Betting The 80th All Star Game
On Tuesday night Major League Baseball will be playing their 80th All Star Game at Busch Stadium in St Louis to determine which league will have home field advantage in next October’s Fall Classic. Can you imagine if the Super Bowl was played at one team’s home stadium based on the results of the Pro Bowl? That’s another discussion for a different day. I heard on a radio sports talk show yesterday a talking head going on and on about how the American League lineup was far superior and that they were going to put a world of hurt on the National League. Of course being the ultimate contrarian it makes me like the National League at “home” with the league’s best player (Albert Pujols) even feeling more at home. This week I would like to analyze betting the midsummer classic from a different angle. Let’s start by looking at the total number of runs scored in the past 79 contests and perhaps we will come up with a betting strategy for this year’s game. Below I have charted the number of times totals have come since the first game was played in 1933 (Remember there were two All Star Games played in both 1960 and 1961).
| RUNS SCORED | NUMBER of TIMES |
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 3 |
| 3 | 4 |
| 4 | 6 |
| 5 | 9 |
| 6 | 6 |
| 7 | 7 |
| 8 | 8 |
| 9 | 8 |
| 10 | 3 |
| 11 | 6 |
| 12 | 6 |
| 13 | 4 |
| 14 | 1 |
| 15 | 1 |
| 16 | 2 |
| 17 | 0 |
| 18 | 1 |
| 19 | 1 |
| 20 | 1 |
| 21 | 1 |
Interestingly enough 8 runs and 9 runs are tied for the two most common totals for the All Star Game with 7 runs being a close runnerup. The average for the 79 games comes out to 8.46 runs per game. In 44 of the 79 contests (56%) the two teams combined for 8 runs or less. In 35 of the games (44%) the total landed on 9 runs or more. Now let’s look at the last ten contests in the chart below:
| YEAR | RUNS SCORED |
| 1999 | 5 |
| 2000 | 9 |
| 2001 | 5 |
| 2002 | 14 |
| 2003 | 13 |
| 2004 | 13 |
| 2005 | 12 |
| 2006 | 5 |
| 2007 | 9 |
| 2008 | 7 |
In only 18 of 79 All Star Games (23%) have the two teams scored a dozen or more runs and four of those occurred in the last ten years (2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005). There was a total of 92 runs scored in these ten games for an average of 9.2 runs per game almost 3/4 of a run higher than the average for all 79 games. So now let’s take it one step further and go back ten more years:
| YEAR | RUNS SCORED |
| 1989 | 8 |
| 1990 | 2 |
| 1991 | 6 |
| 1992 | 19 |
| 1993 | 12 |
| 1994 | 15 |
| 1995 | 5 |
| 1996 | 6 |
| 1997 | 4 |
| 1998 | 21 |
Wow, four more double digit games (1992,1993,1994 and 1998) and a whopping total of 98 runs scored in the ten games for an average of 9.8 runs per game. If you add the two last decades together you get a total of 190 runs or 9.5 runs per game which is over one run higher than the average for all games. Clearly the All Star contest has become a higher scoring affair over the last two decades. The total for the game next Tuesday has yet to be posted but hopefully these stats will help you make a decision whether to go over or under. Either way it is a fun way to play the All Star Game that I have enjoyed over the years. Thanks for listening.