Major League Baseball rarely announces All-Star Game locations very far in advance, but this year’s host city was decided back in 2019, a promise between commissioner Rob Manfred and dying Philadelphia Phillies owner David Montgomery, who was in a hospital battling cancer when Manfred gave him a baseball that signified the All-Star Game’s commitment to Philadelphia in 2026.
Montgomery died a month later.
“It was really near and dear to David,” Montgomery’s wife Lyn told Tyler Kepner. “And he felt strongly that it should be in Philadelphia this year. So, it’s happening, all these years later.”
This year is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which was signed in Philadelphia, and so there is some national symbolism in having this All-Star Game in that city. And knowing it would happen — even though he would not live to see it — meant a lot to the late Phillies’ owner. Check out Tyler’s story on an All-Star Game that is seven years (or 250 years) in the making.
