MLB is still negotiating with New York City officials to hold the 2013 All-Star Game at Citi Field, baseball sources said, nearly six months after league Commissioner Bud Selig strongly hinted that the New York Mets would be awarded the game and well past normal schedules for announcing future host cities.
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MLB is in talks with NYC officials for Citi Field to host the 2013 game.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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The league typically names its coming All-Star Game venues anywhere from 23 to 31 months ahead of the event. Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium, the 2012 All-Star Game site, was officially announced in June 2010. The 2013 game, still without a publicly named site, is, by comparison, just 18 months away.
But just as the 2008 All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium was not announced until January 2007, industry sources said MLB is once again dealing with the complex logistics of staging its midsummer jewel event in the country’s largest market.
MLB and Mets executives declined to comment, but league sources said the delay owes to these logistics and planning concerns, and not the continuing financial woes of the Mets. Still grappling with the fallout from the Bernie Madoff scandal, the Mets last month took out a $40 million bridge loan from Bank of America to cover operational expenses, adding to an unpaid $25 million emergency loan from the league in November 2010. Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz are seeking to sell minority shares in the club.
League sources said there is no news conference on the 2013 All-Star Game imminently planned for the new year, meaning it will likely be at least late January before the matter is resolved.
The 2013 All-Star Game could be the first to shift from its usual placement on the second Tuesday of July by one day, to Wednesday. The new labor deal between MLB and the MLB Players Association contemplates that potential change, and beginning in 2012, the length of the All-Star break will extend by one day to four.
