MLB Cancels 2020 All-Star Game, Dodgers Awarded 2022 Game

Major League Baseball today announced that the 2020 MLB All-Star Game, originally scheduled to be played at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium on July 14th. The game was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and likely coupled with the fact that the game was set to be played while Spring Training would still be ongoing. These are indeed interesting times.

To make up for the lost game, the Dodgers — who haven’t hosted the All-Star Game since 1980 — were immediately awarded the 2022 MLB All-Star Game. This will makes 2020 the first Major League season to not feature the Mid-Summer Classic since travel restrictions were in place during World War II in 1945.

“Once it became clear we were unable to hold this year’s All-Star festivities, we wanted to award the Dodgers with the next available All-Star Game, which is 2022,” Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said in the press release. “I want to thank the Dodgers organization and the city of Los Angeles for being collaborative partners in the early stages of All-Star preparation and for being patient and understanding in navigating the uncertainty created by the pandemic. The 2022 All-Star celebration promises to be a memorable one with events throughout the city and at picturesque Dodger Stadium.”

Despite the cancellation of the 2020 game, the Dodgers will honour their All-Star Legacy Project commitments, a total of $1.7 million to benefit the communities of South Los Angeles, Downtown Skid Row, Lincoln Heights and Chinatown. Exact details of these projects will be unveiled at a later date.

“As excited as we were to host this year’s All-Star Game, we know that it will be worth the wait and that Dodger Stadium and Los Angeles will host a world-class event in 2022.”, said Dodgers president & CEO Stan Kasten. “We’d like to thank Commissioner Rob Manfred for re-awarding All-Star Week to Los Angeles so quickly, as well as Mayor Eric Garcetti and Councilmember Gil Cedillo for their continued support of this premier sporting event, which will have lasting benefits for our community.”

Focusing on the logo side of things (as is our usual focus here), this gives us a new All-Star Game logo to add to the “Unused Logos” pile — joining the 1999 and 2017 NBA All-Star Games, as well as a hearty handful of NHL Games (1995, 2005, 2006, 2013). I also imagine this means the Dodgers will no longer wear the 2020 All-Star Game patch on their jerseys during the season, which makes photos such as the one above a little more noteworthy

As was the case with the 1999 & 2002 NBA All-Star Games and the 2013 & 2015 NHL All-Star Games, the 2020 & 2022 MLB All-Star Games will share the same logo.