ATLANTA -- Clutching the glass bat given to the All-Star Game MVP, Kyle Schwarber walked through the National League clubhouse and chuckled to himself: He had just won the award without registering a single hit in the game.
"One good BP wins you a trophy these days," Schwarber said.
What happened Tuesday night at the All-Star Game was unlike anything in the 94 versions that preceded it. Thanks to a rule change three years ago, baseball unveiled its version of penalty kicks in soccer or a shootout in hockey: Break a tie after nine innings via a Home Run Derby-style swing-off. And there was perhaps no one on the planet better to meet the moment than Schwarber, the Philadelphia Phillies slugger, who homered on all three of his swings in the impromptu batting practice session to propel the NL to the win (6-6, with a 4-3 edge in homers) in the Midsummer Classic.
For an All-Star Game that has grown relatively stale in recent years, larded with pitching changes and substitutions, the swing-off lent it an air of freshness and excitement. Amid all of the oddities -- Atlanta Braves fans at a sold-out Truist Park cheering on a star from their hated rival, New York Mets players urging on Schwarber, all of it against the backdrop of the NL blowing a 6-0 lead -- the one constant was Schwarber playing hero at a time of import.
As the American League blitzed back from a half-dozen-run deficit, the possibility of the swing-off was tantalizingly close -- not just for the wide swath of fans who hadn't known that Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association had agreed to a sudden-death All-Star Game derby, but for the players who had stuck around until the end of the game to bear witness to a contest teeming with pressure -- particularly for an exhibition.
The rules were simple: NL manager Dave Roberts and AL manager Aaron Boone selected three players and one alternate to take three swings. The team with the most home runs wins the game. As nice as it would have been for Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge to participate, when they made their choices in the days leading up to the game, both managers selected players they anticipated would be warm from finishing on the field: Schwarber, Mets first baseman Pete Alonso and Diamondbacks third baseman Eugenio Suarez for the NL, countering Brent Rooker of the A's, Mariners outfielder Randy Arozarena and Tampa Bay first baseman Jonathan Aranda.
Late in the game, with the possibility of a tie three outs away, Los Angeles Dodgers bench coach Danny Lehmann approached Marlins outfielder Kyle Stowers and told him if the game did indeed go extra innings, he would need to hit for Suarez, who was removed from the game after being hit by a 100 mph pitch on his hand.
"You're f---ing with me," Stowers said.
"No, I'm seriously not," Lehmann said. "This is real."
"You're kidding," Stowers said.
"I'm serious," Lehmann said.
"I thought I was the young guy getting teased," Stowers later said. "Lo and behold, after the game ends, the managers meet up. And I think, 'This might be for real.'"
Boone and Roberts had a finite group from which to choose. Around half the players were gone from the stadium, already headed home after a long, hot week here. Those who stuck around were rewarded with an urgent, entertaining gimmick that put players in a crucible, cranked the temperature and challenged them not to melt.
The format differed from the Home Run Derby the previous night, during which Seattle catcher Cal Raleigh won a contest that required stamina to make it through minuteslong rounds. The swing-off was different -- reminiscent of the bonus rounds in the Derby during which fans get to admire home runs without the specter of another ball flying off the bat soon thereafter.
Ohtani wasn't there. Neither was Judge. And it didn't really matter, because the players were undeniably into the results, the sort of reaction that lent credibility to the format. After the AL tied the game on an infield hit from Steve Kwan with two outs and two strikes in the ninth, reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal -- already in the clubhouse and in his street clothes -- and Kansas City left-hander Kris Bubic were happy to follow the lead of Minnesota right-hander Joe Ryan, who said: "We gotta go out and watch this."
They saw a show. And showmanship. And a comeback from a 2-1 deficit after Rooker hit two of his three swings out and Stowers parked one home run. And of course it was delivered by the ultimate showman, Schwarber. The 32-year-old introduced himself a decade ago with five home runs in his first postseason and then equaled that number in the 2023 NL Championship Series. All told, he has 21 homers in 69 postseason games. This was nothing, Schwarber being Schwarber, launching titanic shots in the most opportune of scenarios.
Even though he never takes batting practice on the field, Schwarber was perfectly thrilled to break that habit for the sake of the NL. With Dodgers third-base coach Dino Ebel throwing, Schwarber used a brand-new bat -- a 99 mph Aroldis Chapman sinker had broken his lumber in the ninth inning -- and then lined his first swing over the fence to center field. He followed with a high parabola 461 feet into right-center. His final swing was classic Schwarber, taking him down to his back knee, as if he were proposing the swing-off end right there with his third home run, down the right-field line.
It didn't, not officially: Aranda, one of the breakout hitters of the first half, stepped up and proceeded to hit one ball off Truist Park's brick wall in the outfield. He didn't come close to a home run with two others. NL players rejoiced around Schwarber, leaving Alonso with nothing to do but celebrate the win.
"I don't think I'd like that in-season if we lost on it," San Diego Padres reliever Jason Adam said. "But for this setting, it was awesome."
Almost everyone in both clubhouses shared Adam's sentiment. The exigency of a limited-swing Derby -- and the difficulty in going from game to batting practice with essentially a moment's notice -- transfixed players. And the audience, though understandably lamenting the absenteeism of some of the game's biggest stars, mostly embraced the idea as novelty done right.
"There's probably a world where you could see that in the future, where maybe it's in some regular-season mix," Boone said. "I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if people start talking about it like that. Obviously, I don't think that should happen, necessarily, or would at any time in the near future. But I've got to say, it was pretty exciting."
Already Tuesday had offered an All-Star Game filled with firsts. The inclusion of the automated ball-strike challenge system saw borderline ball-strike calls overturned by a simple tap on the head. Amid an outing in which he threw nine of his 18 pitches at 100-plus mph, rookie sensation Jacob Misiorowski unleashed an ungodly 98.1 mph slider so nasty it awed players in both dugouts.
In the end, it was an electric night for baseball, with Schwarber serving as the conduit. And when Jon Shestakofsky of the National Baseball Hall of Fame went to collect the bat Schwarber used to go 3-for-3 -- a decade after Schwarber gave the Hall his bat used to collect the MVP award of the Futures Game -- he noticed not a single scratch or sign that the bat had even been used.
"No ball marks when you flush it," Schwarber said.
He had indeed -- and in the process lent validity to the idea that the swing-off could be an entertaining way to cap All-Star week. Players around both clubhouses said they would consider signing up for the swing-off next year -- and Stowers said the swing-off made him want to participate in the Home Run Derby in the future. The champion of this year's Derby was perfectly content to share the spotlight with Schwarber.
"It's good for the game, it's good for baseball, it's good for the fans," Raleigh said.
And that's the point, right? All of the consternation over Misiorowski making the NL team after just 25⅔ major league innings ignored a fundamental element of All-Star week -- as much as it's to reward the players, it's to grow the game's fandom, too.
Tuesday's swing-off was baseball balm, surprisingly comforting, and sent the game into its second half with momentum. The trade deadline will provide that tension for the next two weeks and pennant races thereafter. The game is in a good place because it is evermore the realm of the unforeseen and unknowable.
We might not get many of these -- only 13 past Midsummer Classics have gone to extra innings -- which will only increase its charm, allowing the swing-off to become the most pleasant of surprises. As we saw Tuesday, there is glory in the pressure, the stress, the thrill of knowing you've got only three swings. It's a beautiful little distillation of baseball, exceptional in portioned doses.