NEW YORK
Flip on any highlight show, and you’re almost sure to see them, with those peach-fuzz faces and boyish features beneath their big league caps.
Mike Trout makes a diving catch on the warning track.
Manny Machado whacks another double into the corner at Camden Yards.
Bryce Harper belts a tape-measure home run or barrels into a catcher ... or an outfield fence ... or whatever stands in his way.
The next generation of baseball stars has arrived – straight from the senior prom, it seems – and these guys are changing the complexion of the grand ol’ game.
Derek Jeter is 39 and injured, left off the All-Star team for the first time in eight years.
Matt Harvey is 24 and merciless, with a polished array of breaking pitches to complement 98-mph heat.
“These guys are coming up now with incredible talent, these young players,” National League manager Bruce Bochy said Monday at Citi Field, where the New York Mets are hosting the All-Star game for the first time since Shea Stadium opened in 1964. “I think they are just getting better, faster, bigger, stronger still, and it’s impressive to watch.”
No kidding.
Trout and Harper, the Rookies of the Year last season, are making their second trip to the All-Star game. This time, they will start Tuesday night after getting elected by fans with a fervor for the new boys of summer.
Some of baseball’s best players are among the youngest on the field. Night after night, they put up unprecedented numbers and turn in spectacular plays that belie a birth certificate from the 1990s.
“It’s good for the game,” Trout said. “A lot of young guys are playing fearless and making a name for themselves at an early stage in their career.”
Not only that, they move merchandise.
Jersey sales for Harvey, Harper and Trout rank among the top 10 this season based on purchases of Majestic tops at MLB.com, the league and the players’ association said last week.
Harper is 20, and Trout is all of 21. Barely old enough to vote, let alone buy a drink. Machado’s jersey ranked eighth, one spot behind Jeter, even though the Baltimore third baseman has spent less than a year in the majors. That didn’t stop him from earning his first All-Star selection on his 21st birthday.
“In today’s era, young dudes are getting better and more prepared to come up to the big leagues,” said Orioles teammate Adam Jones, an All-Star himself. “It’s just an improvement in the game. These young dudes are phenoms, and he’s put his name up there.
“He’s probably more mature than I am, and I’m 27.”
Machado was voted in by players, a significant sign of respect from his peers.
Well, mostly elders, actually. He certainly deserved it at a power-packed position after hitting 39 doubles in the first half, threatening the single-season record of 67 set by Earl Webb in 1931.
“Swing and hit the white ball coming at you; that’s all it is,” Machado said. “There’s no secret to it.”
Just like Little League, apparently. Sometimes he makes it look that easy, too. But take a swing around the majors, and you see it’s not only Trout, Harper and Machado.
There is Miami rookie Jose Fernandez, a 20-year-old All-Star with a Cy Young future. Don’t forget lefty Patrick Corbin (23), who is 11-1 with a 2.35 earned-run average for Arizona. And second-year shortstop Jean Segura in Milwaukee, who leads the NL in hits at age 23.
“I feel pretty good when they compare me with those guys,” Segura said about his place among baseball’s new breed.
Then there’s Harvey, the New York Mets’ ace with 29 major league starts to his name. His next one will be Tuesday night on his home mound opposite Detroit Tigers right-hander Max Scherzer.
“For me, he’s the best pitcher in the game,” Diamondbacks outfielder Cody Ross said this month. “Not even just in the National League. He’s really good. I faced a lot of those guys in the American League last year, and I can’t say that I saw anyone better than him.
“His mound presence is as good as you’ll see.”
There are 12 All-Stars this season 24 or younger, seven in the National League. That’s the most since a dozen were selected in 1993, according to STATS – a group that included Ken Griffey Jr., Mike Piazza, Gary Sheffield, Mike Mussina and Juan Gonzalez.
The only player from that bunch under 23 was 21-year-old catcher Ivan Rodriguez. This year, there are four.
That doesn’t include Los Angeles Dodgers sensation Yasiel Puig, left out of the game after six electric weeks in the big leagues at 22. More to come from him, for sure.
“Every guy that you just mentioned plays the game hard, plays it the right way every day. It’s so much fun to be part of that,” Harper said.
“I’m not going to back off the throttle at all. I’m full speed every day.”
In all, 12 players who qualified as rookies last season made the All-Star team this year. So much for sophomore slumps.
“There’s definitely a different breed of ballplayer coming out,” Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire said last weekend. “This seems to be one of those cycles where a lot of young players are flashing quick.”
Although fresh faces are taking over, that doesn’t mean all the old guys are out. Mariano Rivera, Torii Hunter, Carlos Beltran and Bartolo Colon are back at the Midsummer Classic, bringing decades of experience and wisdom.
And what impresses veterans the most about this crop of young stars is the way they carry themselves on and off the field. Harper occasionally flashes a hot temper with Washington, but opponents predominantly praise them for their all-around skill and steady performance.
“It’s different from when I first came up. Just the attention, the media coverage, the pressure,” said Twins catcher Joe Mauer, a No. 1 draft pick who made his first All-Star appearance at 23. “To keep everything in perspective and go out there and do your job every day and stay consistent is really what makes it pretty special.
“A lot of guys can come up and have immediate success right away, and the league can kind of figure you out a little bit. But those guys keep going day after day and keep producing.”
Yankees manager Joe Girardi is reminded of the mid-90s when Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Nomar Garciaparra all broke in at shortstop in the American League.
“It is kind of amazing the level that these young guys are playing,” Girardi said.
Making them just the sort of stars baseball wants to build around.
“I like the fact that they play the game the right way. They seem to get it,” Minnesota general manager Terry Ryan said. “They’re gifted; they’re energetic. It’s good to see a young, up-and-coming player that represents not only their franchise well but the game well.”
AP Sports Writers Tim Booth in Seattle, David Ginsburg in Baltimore and Steven Wine in Miami contributed to this report.
Cespedes outhomers Harper to make Derby homer history
NEW YORK – The Home Run Derby champion didn’t even make the All-Star team.
Yoenis Cespedes won baseball’s power-hitting competition with a dazzling display Monday night, becoming the first player left out of the All-Star game to take home the crown.
The Oakland Athletics slugger beat Bryce Harper 9-8 in the final round at reconfigured Citi Field, hitting the decisive drive with five swings to spare.
In his second major league season, the outfielder from Cuba dropped his bat and raised his arm in triumph when he sent his 32nd homer of the night some 455 feet to deep center field, where it caromed off the back wall of the black batter’s eye. He was swarmed by the American League All-Stars near the third-base line.
“You come for a show in New York. He put on a show,” said Detroit Tigers pitcher Max Scherzer, set to start for the AL on Tuesday night.
The final addition to the field, Cespedes was the fourth player not selected for the All-Star game to compete in the event.
Right off the bat, he proved he belonged. With family in the stands, Cespedes hit a whopping 17 home runs in the first round – more than any other player managed in their first two trips to the plate.
“I felt that I was getting into a very good rhythm, and that as long as the ball was right over the plate, I felt like I was in a good groove,” Cespedes said through a translator. “That was the key.”
That sent him straight into the finals, though he added six long balls in Round 2 for good measure. Some of his early drives were particularly impressive, too.
Cespedes hit about a half-dozen balls into the upper deck in left, never reached by anyone in a game, and he banged another couple of shots off the restaurant windows in the corner just below.
The 27-year-old Cespedes has struggled as a sophomore, batting only .225 with 15 home runs, but hardly anyone in the game doubts his ability.
“This trophy will motivate me so that things continue to go well for me, and I just want to thank the people that believed in me, that thought I could play at this level,” he said.
The 20-year-old Harper, wearing shiny gold spikes as his father pitched to him, hammered eight homers in all three rounds. But the Washington Nationals phenom couldn’t keep up with Cespedes.
“He’s incredible,” Harper said. “He’s an absolute machine.”
Colorado outfielder Michael Cuddyer and Baltimore first baseman Chris Davis, who leads the majors with 37 homers, were eliminated in the second round. Davis tied Reggie Jackson (1969) for the AL home run record before the All-Star break.
“I had a little blister come up second round. It’s just one of those things,” Davis said. “I usually get one once a year, and it just happened to be (Monday night). It actually popped during a swing. My main concern is obviously not to hurt myself and to hang onto the bat.
“It’s something that I’ve dealt with in my career since I can remember. You’ve just got to kind of wear it for a couple of days, and then it hardens up and you’re good to go.”
Citi Field opened in 2009 with cavernous dimensions and yielded the fewest home runs in the majors over its first three seasons. But the Mets erected a new fence in front of the old one – dubbed the Great Wall of Flushing – before last season, shaving dimensions by up to 12 feet and lowering the height of the wall from as high as 16 feet to 8 all around.
Since then, the ballpark has ranked closer to the middle of the pack in home runs, 18th out of 30, but it’s still no hitter’s haven.
In fact, hometown favorite David Wright of the Mets had joked that he would take his Derby swings from second base.
Baseball’s big boppers took aim at two trucks parked beside the home run apple behind the center-field fence, a popular staple at Mets games dating to their days in Shea Stadium.
Wright and another hometown darling, Pirates slugger Pedro Alvarez, both were eliminated in the first round. Alvarez went to high school in New York City and grew up in the same Manhattan neighborhood as Manny Ramirez.
“I ran out of gas,” Wright said.
Also knocked out early were defending champion Prince Fielder, the only player besides Ken Griffey Jr. to win multiple crowns, and American League captain Robinson Cano of the New York Yankees, who made Cespedes his final pick.
Cano, the 2011 champion, was booed relentlessly in Kansas City last year after he didn’t tab Royals slugger Billy Butler to participate, and the Kansas City crowd was delighted when Cano went without a home run.
He connected on his third swing this time but finished last with only four.
Wright, booed in Pittsburgh last weekend for initially passing on Alvarez, hit five home runs as the sellout crowd of 43,558 chanted “Let’s Go Mets!”
Alvarez was added when Colorado outfielder Carlos Gonzalez pulled out with a sprained middle finger. Gonzalez remains in the National League starting lineup for Tuesday night’s All-Star game, though.
