Another day, another round of teams rocking the All-Star Game Final Vote
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On Wednesday, teams around the league urged fans to make a pick in the 2016 Esurance MLB All-Star Game Final Vote, as each club has hopes of sending another representative to the All-Star Game presented by Mastercard next week in San Diego.
Since we live in a social media age, teams began getting fans to rock the vote through some pretty intense campaigns on Twitter. There were hashtags, silly .GIFs, videos and other forms of media shared heavily, and it won't stop until Friday at 4 p.m. ET.
Thursday, things picked up steam as teams raced to the deadline. Two participating clubs, the Rays and D-backs, formed a strategic alliance in support of their respective candidates Evan Longoria and Jake Lamb:
The Cardinals put in a good word, too:
Arizona's campaign for Lamb didn't stop there, as slugger Paul Goldschmidt (who recently joined Twitter for the first time just to help spread the word) did some campaigning in the Bay Area ahead of the D-Backs' series in San Francisco this weekend:
Comedian/impression king Frank Caliendo even lent a hand as only he could -- by imitating one Mr. Trump:
And, for good measure, 'Zona shared a video of Lamb singing Drake's Hotline Bling, because why not?
But wait, there's more: A lamb crashed the D-backs' Legends Race, too:
Now, as for the rest of the candidates ... the Tigers backed Ian Kinsler with enthusiasm on Thursday. James McCann did his part:
While FOX Sports Detroit announced a "#VoteKinsler Party" set for Friday morning, which includes something intriguingly called #KittensForKinsler ...
Not opposed to alliances themselves, the Tigers joined the Pirates in a push for Kinsler and Starling Marte:
The Pirates also reached out to the Steelers, who were definitely on-board with supporting their fellow Pittsburgh team:
Teamwork!
Over in the Bay Area, the Giants' push for Brandon Belt resulted in -- what else -- a photo-op of Belt and his namesake, a giraffe named Brandon at Six Flags Discovery Bay:
While Belt's teammate Hunter Pence held a big axe, wore long johns and voted for Belt in his posh San Francisco loft:
The team also rolled out a .GIF of Belt in a giraffe hat, naturally:
AND formed an alliance with the Red Sox in their push for Dustin Pedroia:
On their own, the Sox employed the use of Bigfoot (he's real!), who did some on-the-ground campaign work around the Boston area on Thursday:
Up in Toronto, the Blue Jays went full-steam-ahead with their push for Captain Canada, a.k.a. Michael Saunders, as his teammates wore t-shirts in support:
George Springer strengthened his Final Vote candidacy with a leadoff triple in the first inning in the Astros' game against the A's, prompting this:
Earlier in the day, his sister Lena shared a rather amazing #TBT pic of young George as her push for votes:
And, in another show of intra-town togetherness, J.J. Watt of the Texans told his 2,000,000+ Twitter followers to vote as well:
The Brewers, meanwhile, pulled out a photo of Ryan Braun and his precious young daughter Celine, because who can resist something like this?
With no game Thursday, the Crew also sent Bernie the Brewer around town for some grassroots campaigning of his own:
While all of this was going on, the Rockies continued #StoryTime in their push for Trevor Story by throwing some lighthearted shade toward Dodgers fans:
All of the above, mind you, is merely a smattering of the tweets, Snaps, Instgrams, Vines and GIF'ing that went on throughout the day. As you can see, this has been an all-out frenzy as these eight clubs campaign for their respective players.
Fans can vote for the 2016 Esurance MLB All-Star Game Final Vote until 4 p.m. ET on Friday. The winners, as chosen exclusively by online fan voting totals, will be announced during a Final Vote-themed telecast of "MLB Now" featuring commentary from political analyst Jeff Greenfield, live on MLB Network and MLB.com from 4-5 p.m. ET. MLB Network will provide extensive coverage across all of its studio programming during the Final Vote, including interviews with the candidates, frequent updates, heat maps indicating the cities where votes are being cast for each candidate, news on player and club campaigns and a running countdown clock leading up to the announcement.
Baseball fans have cast nearly 600 million online votes for Final Vote candidates since the program's inception in 2002. In addition to MLB.com and the official club websites, fans can use their mobile devices to cast votes at MLB.com/vote or via text message. To receive the ballot, text the word "VOTE" to 89269. To vote for a specific player, fans can text their choice to 89269. EXAMPLE: Text "A3" to vote for AL Player 3 or "N3" to vote for NL Player 3. Message and data rates may apply. Text "STOP" to end and "HELP" for information. Mobile voting in Canada also is available and fans should text their choices to 101010.
For the fifth consecutive year, the Final Vote will include social balloting, as Twitter support for the 10 candidates over the last six hours of balloting will count toward their vote totals. From 10 a.m.-4 p.m. ET on Friday, any tweet that includes a designated player hashtag will be tabulated as part of the official vote total used to determine the winners.