Lobbying for the All-Star Game

I don’t know much about what goes into deciding where All-Star games are held, but I can’t recall the process being subject to intense, Olympic-style lobbying, can you?

The Reds are pursuing an All-Star date for 2013, Karen Forgus, the club’s senior vice president of business operations, said on Monday.

“We’re pushing hard on it,” Forgus said. “We’re actively pursuing it” . . .

. . . Forgus said the team has done mock time lines to check the availability of venues such as Duke Energy Center as it targets prospective years. She added that Bob Castellini, the Reds president and chief executive officer, is also lobbying MLB commissioner Bud Selig.

“If they come here, they’ll be the event in town,” Forgus said. “We can do things on both sides of the river. We’ll bring riverboats in. We’ll go all out.”

I guess I was always under the impression that the prerequisites for hosting an All-Star game were (a) having a park; and (b) not having had it for a while, and if those things were present, Major League Baseball simply decided to host it in your town. Or not. Am I now to understand that bids are actually packaged and weighed? Or is this a news item because what’s going on in Cincinnati is a different than the process that usually takes place?