AROUND THE HORN

All-Star Game:

Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera were added to All-Star Game rosters on Friday by baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred under a provision in the sport’s new labor agreement. The All-Star selection is the 11th for the 42-year-old Pujols and the first since 2015. Cabrera, 39, was picked for the 12th time and the first since 2016. Pujols returned to the Cardinals in March, agreeing to a $2.5 million, one-year contract with the team he started with. An NL MVP in 2005, 2008 and 2009, the Dominican star played for the Cardinals from 2001-11, then left for a $240 million, 10-year contract with the Angels. He spent most of 2021 with the Dodgers. He is a .296 career hitter and fifth with 683 home runs, trailing only Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755), Babe Ruth (714) and Alex Rodriguez (696). Pujols’ 2,168 RBIs are third behind Aaron (2,297) and Ruth (2,214). Pujols is hitting .200 with four homers and 18 RBIs in 125 at-bats this season. He said in March he intends to retire after this season. Cabrera won the AL MVP in 2012 and 2013, and in 2012 led the AL with a .330 batting average, 44 homers and 139 RBIs to become MLB’s first Triple Crown winner since the Red Sox’s Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. A Venezuela native, Cabrera began his big league career with the Marlins in 2003 and was traded to the Tigers after the 2007 season with pitcher Dontrelle Willis for pitchers Andrew Miller, Dallas Trahern, Burke Badenhop and Frankie De La Cruz and outfielder Cameron Maybin. Cabrera has a .310 career average with 505 homers and 1,835 RBIs. He is hitting .308 with three homers and 31 RBIs in 2022, the ninth season of a $292 million, 10-year contract. Yankees’ Aaron Judge and Braves’ Ronald Acuña Jr. were elected to start in the July 19 game at in Los Angeles, and remaining starters among position players were announced Friday after press time. Manfred has the right under the March 10 agreement that ended the lockout to “add one player that he selects to each league’s roster, in recognition of each player’s career achievements. If special circumstances warrant, the commissioner may select more than one player to each league’s roster.” Pujols and Cabrera additions to the 32-man limit.

Angels: It took four seasons for Shohei Ohtani to join the biggest major league stars of the last eight decades. To commemorate Baseball Digest’s 80th anniversary, the publication selected 80 iconic players essential to telling the story of the game from 1942-2021. Even though he didn’t arrive in the big leagues from Japan until 2018, the two-way phenom has made such an astounding impact as a hitter and pitcher that Ohtani was one of 10 active players chosen by a 12-member panel of longtime MLB observers and participants. The others spotlighted in the July/ August issue were Mookie Betts, Miguel Cabrera, Bryce Harper, Clayton Kershaw, Yadier Molina, Albert Pujols, Max Scherzer, Mike Trout and Justin Verlander. Ohtani, who turned 28 on July 5, was the AL MVP last year and the 2018 AL Rookie of the Year. No player since Babe Ruth has been such a force both at the plate and on the mound. Jackie Robinson breaking baseball’s color barrier in April 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers was picked as the greatest of 30 iconic moments in the magazine’s history.