Major League Baseball All-Star Game Venues

The venue for each All-Star Game is chosen by an MLB selection committee. This choice may be made to commemorate a particular historical occasion, the opening of a new ballpark, or a significant milestone. The criteria for choosing the venue are subjective; for the most part, cities with new parks and cities who have not hosted the game in a long time – or ever – tend to be favored. This time-sensitive subjectivity has resulted in some quirks in distributing the venues among the major league franchises; from 1964 to 2016, five teams have hosted 3 times, 13 teams twice, ten teams once, and two teams not at all:

As of 2016, two Major League Baseball franchises have never hosted an All-Star Game: the Tampa Bay Rays and the Miami Marlins, who are now scheduled to host in 2018 following the 2012 opening of Marlins Park. (Although Miami was initially scheduled to host in 2000, MLB eventually moved the game to Atlanta.) Although the Washington Nationals franchise haven't yet hosted the game in their current home ballpark, they did host one when they were the Montreal Expos; and All-Star games have been played in D.C., hosted by two incarnations of the Washington Senators (now known as the Minnesota Twins and as the Texas Rangers).

Of the remaining 27 franchises, the New York Mets had gone the longest period without hosting since their sole hosting duty in 1964, but this streak came to an end at 49 years in 2013. (The Dodgers are now the team with the longest active hosting drought, since 1980.) During that span, 18 of the remaining 25 teams have hosted an All-Star Game at least twice since 1964: Atlanta Braves (1972 and 2000), Chicago White Sox (1983 and 2003), Cincinnati Reds (1970, 1988, and 2016),Cleveland Indians (1981 and 1997), Detroit Tigers (1971 and 2005), Houston Astros (1968, 1986, and 2004), Kansas City Royals (1973 and 2012), Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (1967, 1989, and 2010), Milwaukee Brewers (1975 and 2002), Minnesota Twins (1965, 1985, and 2014), New York Yankees (1977 and 2008),Philadelphia Phillies (1976 and 1996), Pittsburgh Pirates (1974, 1994, and 2006), San Diego Padres (1978 and 1992), San Francisco Giants (1984 and 2007),Seattle Mariners (1979 and 2001), St. Louis Cardinals (1966 and 2009), and Washington Senators / Texas Rangers (1969 and 1995). Some of these decisions were due to new ballparks (the Twins have hosted in each of their three home fields, for example), but the nearly-identical symmetrical artificial-turfed parks in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati each got two turns during this span, essentially subjecting viewers (during the even-numbered National League-hosted seasons) to six visits to the same ball park while Shea Stadium remained unused, and iconic venues such as Dodger Stadium and Wrigley Field were only employed once apiece. (The twice-used Houston Astrodome, while similarly AstroTurfed, was at least visually distinct from the other, over-employed "cookie cutter" synthetic-field stadiums.) Ironically enough, both Three Rivers Stadium (1994) and Veterans Stadium (1996) were demolished less than a decade after MLB chose to "spotlight" them with these repeat visits.