ATLANTA — What if you went to an All-Star Game and a penalty-kick home-run shootout broke out?
Welcome to the 2025 MLB All-Star Game — a game in which the world turned upside-down, the guy who threw the last pitch was a coach, the hitter who took the last swing wasn’t even wearing a cap and the MVP was a fellow who went hitless (in the actual game, that is).
The history books will tell you that the National League won this game Tuesday night, 7-6, despite the slight technicality that that seventh run never crossed the plate.
The history books (and box score) also will tell you that Kyle Schwarber hit zero homers in this game, even though those three space capsules the Phillies’ biggest bopper launched into the seats in extra time might have been the three most memorable swings — back to back to back — of his career.
But that’s how it goes when an All-Star Game gets decided by the first “Home Run Swing-Off” in major-league history. One minute, it’s a 6-6 tie, after nine dramatic innings. The next thing you know, there’s 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?
“It’s a weird feeling when you see the (grounds-crew) guy running out from center field with the L screen (for the pitcher),” said Giants pitcher Robbie Ray. “You’re just like, what is going on? (National League manager) Dave Roberts came down in the ninth inning, one out, two outs. He was like, ‘Hey, you guys won’t believe this. But if this thing ends in a tie, it’s going to be a home-run off.’
“It was a little weird, a little wild. But we ended up winning, so it was great.”
Whoa. Did that man just mention the words, “weird” and “wild?” 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.
So what the heck was going on at Truist Park late on a one-of-a-kind Tuesday night? Let’s dig in on all the weirdness and wildness.
We just fixed baseball!
The NL players surround Kyle Schwarber after he blasted them to victory in the home run swing-off. (Jordan Godfree / Imagn Images)
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.
It’s 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’s what it took.
No, what would happen was what happened here: Pick the three most sweet-swinging dudes who hadn’t 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 — off a coach — would “triumph” in the All-Star Game.
So that’s 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’d just witnessed the most brilliant idea ever devised by labor lawyers.
“Is that a good way to decide a game or a crazy way to decide a game?” I asked Giants pitcher Logan Webb.
“Honestly,” he replied, “I’ve got a group text going with a couple of other players around baseball … and they said that we should never play an extra-inning game again. Just do it like that.”
WEIRD AND WILD: “So we just fixed baseball?”
WEBB: “Yeah, I think so.”
W&W: “But do you think there are a bunch of old-timers out there saying: What an atrocious way to end a baseball game?”
WEBB: “Probably. But at the end of the day, who cares?”
The choices, after all, were: A) they declare this thing a tie, and somewhere Bud Selig is shrugging, 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.
So they voted for D. And you know what? Excellent choice. But even more excellent because …
Kyle Schwarber is a long-ball swing-off legend!
“He’s always dangerous. He’s never not dangerous,” Pete Alonso said of swing-off stud Kyle Schwarber. (Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
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’s cheesesteak or in a crater on the moon — whichever gets in the way first.
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.
“When I heard we had Schwarber and Pete,” Webb said, “I just said, all right, we’re going to win.”
Except Schwarber made sure that Alonso’s services wouldn’t 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.
Then came an even more Schwarbombian blast — a titanic 461-foot cruise missile way, way, way up into the seats in right-center. It was now 3-3.
He had one more swing — 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’s anchor man, Tampa Bay’s hatless Jonathan Aranda, then got shut out in his three hacks. And this wild ride was over.
#AllStarGame Swing-off
AL – 3
NL – 4Kyle Schwarber GIVES THE NL THE LEAD! pic.twitter.com/NPZJciVTYn
— MLB (@MLB) July 16, 2025
Asked if he knew, as he spun to one knee, that his final blast had enough oomph to go out, Schwarber said: “I didn’t hit it, obviously, my best. But I was thinking I got enough of it. And I was just kind of down there, hoping — saying, ‘Go, go, go.’ And it went. And it was awesome.”
Someone else asked: “Did you ever watch a soccer game decided by penalty kicks and think you, as a baseball player, could be involved in something like that?
“I’d never really thought about it like that,” Schwarber replied. “But yeah. Definitely. Kind of. Now that you say that, makes you feel like it’s a penalty kick.”
Right. Just think of him now as Kyle Schwarber, the Cristiano Ronaldo of late-night All-Star baseball. Why the heck not. There’s 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.
“He’s dangerous,” Alonso said. “He’s always dangerous. He’s never not dangerous. It doesn’t matter how he’s feeling or how he’s performing. Whenever he steps in the box, he’s always dangerous.”
“The guy’s already a legend,” Kyle Stowers said. “This just adds to it.”
But how we got here was also Weird (and Wild)
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’t just get them into an overtime Home Run Hack-off. It got them into the record books.
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 … none, according to my friends from STATS Perform.
The previous biggest lead any team had ever blown in an All-Star Game: five, in 1955, when Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams powered the AL to a 5-0 lead with nine outs to go … and the NL came all the way back and won, 6-5, on a walk-off homer by Stan Musial … in the 13th inning.
But that was just how they decided All-Star Games back in the olden days, with actual baseball. And that’ll never catch on now. Obviously.
The team that hosted that game, by the way, was … the Braves (Milwaukee version).
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)
You know what else was kinda wild (and weird)? The way the AL tied this game with two outs in the ninth … 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.
It was the AL’s 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’s not even the Weird and Wild part.
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:
Ted Williams, 1941 — legendary walk-off three-run homer
Michael Young, 2006 — dramatic, lead-flipping two-run triple
Only Kwan’s team would do that and lose. Then again, no home run swing-offs were involved in those other games.
Johnny Callison flashback alert!
In 1964, Johnny Callison unfurled the most famous Phillies All-Star swing of all time — a three-run walk-off homer at Shea Stadium, off the most feared reliever of that era, Boston’s Dick Radatz.
And why would we bring that up now? Because Callison got an All-Star MVP trophy out of it — and after that, 60 consecutive years would go by without any Phillie winning an All-Star MVP award. Not Mike Schmidt. Not Chase Utley. Not Roy Halladay. Nobody.
Until Kyle Schwarber, in this game.
We’ve already chronicled what made Schwarber such a deserving winner. Nevertheless, in the box score, you’ll 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.
In fact, according to one of our favorite researchers, Jessica Brand, only three pitchers have won an All-Star MVP award in a game in which they got to the plate at least once and went hitless:
Roger Clemens in 1986, LaMarr Hoyt in 1985 and Don Sutton in 1977.
Oh, and one more thing: Call this Radatz’s 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.
So there you go. That covers how this All-Star Game ended. But here at Weird and Wild World All-Star HQ, let’s remind you it’s also worth remembering …
How this started
Paul Skenes takes the mound for the second time as the All-Star starter. (Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
Paul Skenes. Perennial All-Star Game starter. At age 23. What a concept.
We didn’t actually need Skenes to start back-to-back All-Star Games to know he was one of those dudes who isn’t like all the other dudes. But now that he’s done that, let’s take a look at just how incredible this is.
Bob Gibson was no Paul Skenes! It seems at least slightly incomprehensible that Skenes has started more All-Star Games than Bob Gibson. But here we are.
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:
Clayton Kershaw (one)
Catfish Hunter (one)
Sandy Koufax (one)
Pedro Martinez (one)
Nolan Ryan (one)
Tom Seaver (one)
Gerrit Cole (one)
And don’t even ask how many pitching legends never started any All-Star Games. Is the Land of the Legends where Skenes is headed? He’s off to an excellent start.
Randy Johnson was no Paul Skenes! Not 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.
How many other pitchers in history have started the All-Star Game in each of their first two seasons in the big leagues? That would be none — of course. (And only one position player has even done that in the last 50 years: some guy named Ichiro Suzuki.)
So how many other pitchers have started two All-Star Games by age 23? For once, that number is not zero. It’s two.
Dwight Gooden did it in 1986 and ’88 (at age 21 and 23). And back in the days when they played two of these games a year, Don Drysdale started both editions in 1959 (the first a couple of weeks before his 23rd birthday, the other 11 days after that birthday).
Roberto Clemente was no Paul Skenes! Ooh, sorry to drag Clemente into this column, too. But it’s hard to avoid, because here’s some tidbits that are hard to comprehend. How many Pirates in history had started two straight All-Star Games before Skenes started this one?
If we’re talking pitchers, that answer is none. But even if we’re talking position players, that answer is … only one.
Andrew McCutchen started the 2014 and 2015 games. But not a single other Pirate has ever done that. Not Clemente. Not Wilver D. Stargell. Not Ralph Kiner. Not even young Barry Bonds.
So let’s say this again. Paul Skenes, perennial All-Star Game starter. It’s even more rarified than you undoubtedly thought it was five minutes ago.
Solving Skubal?
Tarik Skubal in the first inning Tuesday:
Allows hits to the first three hitters.
Tarik Skubal in non-All-Star Games this season:
Has lived through zero first innings in which he gave up three hits.
What’s up with that? Repeat after me:
Baseball!
Skubal to the Fox Sports booth after finally getting Freddie Freeman to bounce to third for the first out: “I thought I was never going to get an out.”
Battle of Cy Youngs?
Would it shock anyone if the two starting pitchers in this game — Skenes and Skubal — wound up winning the Cy Young Awards in their respective leagues? Let’s go with no on that.
So that got me to thinking: How many times in All-Star history have the two starters gone on to collect the two Cy Young trophies that year?
What would your guess be? Five? Ten? A dozen? Nope. Would you believe …
Just once! The only All-Star Game that matched up the two Cy Youngs in that year happened in 2001, when Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens did those honors. Who knew!
Tiger Kings
Meanwhile, it isn’t every year that a Tigers pitcher starts the All-Star Game … but I bet it’s more often than you think.
Would you believe that Skubal is the ninth Tigers pitcher to start an All-Star Game? Here come the others: Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Kenny Rogers, Jack Morris (twice), Mark Fidrych, Denny McLain, Jim Bunning (three times) and Hal Newhouser.
Does that seem like a lot? It did to me. So I asked my friends from STATS Perform to see how many other teams have had that many pitchers start an All-Star Game. Here’s the leaderboard:
Dodgers 13 — Whit Wyatt, Ralph Branca, Don Drysdale (five times), Johnny Podres, Sandy Koufax, Andy Messersmith, Don Sutton, Fernando Valenzuela, Hideo Nomo, Brad Penny, Zack Greinke, Hyun Jin Ryu and Clayton Kershaw.
Yankees 12 — Lefty Gomez (five times), Red Ruffing (two times), Spud Chandler, Hank Borowy, Vic Raschi (two times), Whitey Ford (three times), Bob Turley, Mel Stottlemyre, Jimmy Key, David Wells, Roger Clemens and Gerrit Cole.
Tigers and Cardinals — nine apiece
(Source: STATS Perform)
Nobody beats the Miz
Jacob Misiorowski lit up the radar gun during an eye-popping eighth inning. (Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
We had a fun Jacob Misiorowski inning. The Brewers phenom marched into this game in the eighth inning and was as must-watch as the left-field mph speedball board.
Here come the mph readings from Statcast on all his fastballs from that inning:
101.7
101.9
100.4
100.9
100.5
102.0
102.3
101.1
101.8
99.3
99.2
Not to mention a slider at 98.1.
Those nine rocketballs in triple digits were the second-most a pitcher has ever thrown in an All-Star Game since we started keeping track of those readings 18 seasons ago. The only pitcher with more: Aroldis Chapman, with 13, in 2015.
But wait. The more I thought about the Miz this week, the more I thought we needed to dig up a list of …
The All-Anti-Miz Team
So Misiorowski made an All-Star team after exactly five appearances in a big-league box score. It got me to wondering: Which active starting pitchers have appeared in the most games without ever making it to an All-Star Game? Here are the six veteran starters, currently on big-league rosters, who have gone to the mound 200 times in the major leagues but have never cracked an All-Star roster:
| PITCHER | GAMES STARTED |
|---|---|
|
Kyle Hendricks |
288 |
|
Jon Gray* |
223 |
|
Eduardo Rodriguez |
222 |
|
Kyle Freeland |
217 |
|
Jameson Taillon* |
217 |
|
Andrew Heaney |
203 |
(*currently on the injured list)
(Source: STATS Perform)
HOMES OF THE BRAVES — This was the fifth All-Star Game hosted by the Braves. But here’s the Weird and Wild part: Those five games were played at five different stadiums. Here they come, courtesy of STATS:
Braves Field in Boston (1936), County Stadium in Milwaukee (1955), Atlanta Fulton County Stadium (1972), Turner Field (2000) and Truist Park.
Only one other franchise has hosted All-Star Games at even four different ballparks — the Twins/Senators.
The A’s have it
Brent Rooker became the first player to homer in the All-Star Game and the home run swing-off. (Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
The bad news for Brent Rooker is, he hit three home runs Tuesday night — but like Schwarber, he won’t get credit for becoming the first man to hit three homers in an All-Star Game, because the historians are going to insist that swing-off homers never actually happened.
But here’s the good news: At least he hit one of those homers in the actual game. So let’s add him to this super cool list of historic All-Star homers for the A’s.
First home run for the Philadelphia A’s — Jimmy Foxx, 1935
First home run for the Oakland A’s — Reggie Jackson, the famous 1971 Tiger Stadium roof shot
First home run for the Don’t Call Them the Sacramento A’s — Brent Rooker, 2025
Not pictured: The Kansas City A’s, who never did hit any All-Star homers.
IT’S CAL’S WORLD — Finally, just when you thought Mariners catchin’ magician Cal Raleigh was running out of ways to make history, well … nope!
What’s his latest history-making magic trick this week?
He just became the first player in All-Star history to …
A) win a Home Run Derby and …
B) win an ABS challenge (on what was originally called a low changeup from Skubal to Manny Machado in the first inning Tuesday).
OK, so that’s a thing nobody could have possibly done before now. But it’s all coming soon to …
Baseball! (In 2025 … and beyond).
(Top photo of Kyle Schwarber: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)