All-Star Game Trivia: Who Were the Best All-Stars, Worst Snubs, Most Extreme Repeats, and so on

I guess publishing an article about All-Star Game trivia during the week of the All-Star Game is usually preferable, but there’s not much you can do when the inspiration comes to you during the All-Star Game itself (“the inspiration” in this case being “my brother started asking me questions I didn’t know the answer to during the game”). I guess I could sit on this idea for a year and run it for the 2022 game, but that seems a bit like overkill, and I’m not sure I trust myself to remember it for that long. So instead, let’s just take a look back at the different extremes when it comes to making the All-Star Game.

The obvious starting point is “who has made the most All-Star Games”, which, for anyone not aware, is Henry Aaron. The late Hammerin’ Hank made 25 different All-Star teams across his 23 years in the Majors, only missing in his first and final seasons. For anyone looking at those numbers for a typo, it’s worth mentioning that there were two Games per year from 1959 to 1962 (this will come up later), during which time Aaron went 8-for-8.

Stan Musial and Willie Mays also made two games all four years, which is a big part of their runner-up totals of 24 All-Star selections. The highest total for a player who couldn’t double up like that is Cal Ripken Jr., who made the Midsummer Classic in nineteen different seasons (which is still two behind Aaron and one behind Mays and Musial). Meanwhile, Mariano Rivera leads all pitchers with thirteen Games, with Tom Seaver right behind him at a dozen. Kind of a big step down there. Anyway, all of that is easy enough to find with a basic search, so let’s move on to the more complicated stuff. I’ll separate it into position players and pitchers.