NEW YORK — The New York Yankees are taking an active approach in campaigning for Brett Gardner to win the voting in the Final Vote for next week’s All-Star Game.
Just don’t expect Gardner to be doing any of his own self-promoting for the final spot before voting ends on Friday.
“I don’t even have a Twitter account,” Gardner said before Tuesday’s 4-3 loss to the Oakland Athletics. “I know (teammates) are going to try to get me some votes. I’m going to focus on playing, helping us win games and we’ll see how it turns out on Friday.”
Since the Final Vote began in 2002, the Yankees have had eight instances of players being in the running but only Hideki Matsui (2004) and Nick Swisher (2010) have won the voting. Others nominated were David Robertson (2013), Jason Giambi (2003 and 2008), Derek Jeter (2003) and Matsui (2005).
Gardner was well behind in fan voting and said it’s not his personality to be a self-promoter like others.
“I’m not going to change who I am for the Final Vote deal for these couple days,” he said. “If it works out, I’d obviously enjoy going to Cincinnati next week and being a part of it.”
In the meantime, he’ll hope fans follow the comments made by Dellin Betances and Mark Teixeira.
“I hope the New York fans come out,” said Teixeira, who is going to his third All-Star Game. “I’d love to see Gardy make it. It’d be really cool to have him with me there and with Dellin to represent the Yankees. So hopefully Yankee fans will come out and support him.”
“He’s very deserving,” Betances said. “The numbers speak for itself. I was voting last night, whatever we got to do to vote him in. He’s done a helluva job obviously Jacoby (Ellsbury) going down for a while. He’s been out of the leadoff spot doing everything he can. He’s done it all and I think we got to get him in somehow.”
One player that the Yankees are unable to campaign for is designated hitter Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez was not named to the team even though many thought he deserved a spot.
“I’m obviously disappointed,” Rodriguez said. “It would have been fun to go out and represent the American League, that’s for sure. But I know that while serving the suspension, the time off was very good for me. I hope the four days will be, too.”