Ernie Clement, who delivered the game-winning hit that sent UVA Baseball to the 2015 College World Series – the ‘Hoos went on to win the program’s only national title two weeks later – is, all these many years later, a first-time MLB All-Star.
And he’s done it in impressive fashion, as the leading vote-getter in the American League.
“It’s a really cool honor. I feel the love from Canada and all the Blue Jays fans. It means a lot,” said Clement, who, at this writing, is hitting .294 BA/.753 OPS, with seven homers and 28 RBIs for the Toronto Blue Jays in the 2026 MLB season.
Clement is one of the better examples of grinder – he was released twice, by Cleveland and Oakland, before finally catching on in Toronto, which signed him to a minor-league deal in 2023, his age-27 season, and called him up to the bigs after he hit .348/.944 with 11 homers in 72 games at Triple-A Buffalo.
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Clement became a full-time guy in 2024, playing in 139 games, and he had a career year in 2025, hitting .277/.711 with nine homers and 50 RBIs in 157 games.
Where he earned the undying love of Canadian baseball fans was in the 2025 playoffs, in which he set a single-postseason record with 30 hits, set a single-postseason record with 10 multi-hit games, and hit .387 (12-for-31) in the World Series, with three hits in Game 7.
Clement, who eclipsed 3.2 million votes in the first phase of 2026 All-Star voting, will get the start at second base for the AL.
Stat of the day: Clement’s vote total was just 108,000 short of the total that two-way Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani, the NL’s top vote-getter, got on the other side of the ballot.
“I got DFA’d twice, I’ve been released, I’ve been optioned more times than I can count. I stuck around long enough to earn more and more opportunities,” Clement said. “I’m just so grateful to Toronto, the coaches, the staff, the front office [that] has given me an amazing opportunity. The least I can do is play well and give it back to them.”
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Chris Graham
