Report: MLB Has Scrubbed About 60 Million Improper All-Star Votes

Despite the substantial wave of votes for Royals players in the AL All-Star lineup, MLB Advanced Media CEO Bob Bowman said last week that the ballots were still being submitted legitimately. Over a week later, Bowman admitted that approximately 60 million fraudulent ballots had to be wiped from the record.

Bowman told Ken Rosenthal that every vote was normal on June 10:

Alas, that MLB official – Bob Bowman, president for business and media – assured me there were no irregularities, no improprieties, no impish teenagers in the KC metropolitan area creating phony e-mail addresses and voting up to 35 times for every Royal but Amos Otis.

“No,” Bowman said sternly. “We check on it. We look for programs. We look at IP addresses. We do all that. I would say over the last 12 to 15 years we’ve seen isolated instances (of tampering), more in the Final Man vote than in the All-Star vote. But if we see efforts like that, we always disallow it.”

However, circumstances had apparently changed when Jeff Passan talked to Bowman Thursday, though Bowman didn’t specify that the fake votes were all from Royals fans:

“I’m not saying we bat 1.000,” Bowman said. “But it’s between 60 and 65 million votes that have been canceled. We don’t really trumpet it because if someone thinks they’re getting away with it, they’ll try to again.”

The official Deadspin pro-anarchy stance remains, because the game’s ridiculous already. Go Omar Infante!

[ Yahoo]

Photo: AP

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