On Saturday night, Major League Baseball will reveal the 2023 All-MLB Team along with the Hank Aaron Award Winner and, for the first time, the presentations will happen during a live show with a host and everything. Think of it like MLB's version of the Oscars. Among other things, this means the show comes with a host who starts off with a monologue. The inaugural host is comedian Roy Wood Jr., most likely known to you, dear readers, for his stint on "The Daily Show" or hosting the White House Correspondents' Dinner this past year.
The show takes place Saturday, Dec. 16 at 8 p.m. ET, live from the Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. It'll air on MLB Network, MLB.com and MLB.tv. In addition to Wood hosting, MLB Network personalities will be on hand in addition to Hall of Famer Fred McGriff, Andre Ethier, Bartolo Colon and a large number of current players.
Via MLB, here's the background info on the awards to be presented:
MLB introduced its first-ever All-MLB Team awards in 2019 to give a more comprehensive honor that covered the full breadth of a big-league regular season, complementing the All-Star Game selections that are awarded just past the season's halfway point. Introduced in 1999, the Hank Aaron Award is awarded annually to the best overall offensive performer in each league.
Nominees for the All-MLB team were announced in November and fans could vote once a day for each position for a little less than two weeks. The fan vote counts for half of the results, with the other half coming from "a decorated panel of media members, broadcasters, former players and other officials throughout the game." The Astros had the most nominees, with five position players and five pitchers. The Braves had nine players nominated, and six rookies and 20 players age 25 or younger are up for the honors. The full list of nominations can be seen here.
Though Wood has hosted plenty of live events, he admitted to CBS Sports that there will be nerves before he takes the stage with his monologue on Saturday, as he's never done a sports gig like this before. But even with the spotlight on him, the 45-year-old New York native wanted to stress that this was all about the players.
"Professional athletes, in my opinion, are one of the toughest audiences in entertainment," he said. "Even more so than a room full of politicians. What athletes do is so difficult. For someone to come in and make a joke about it and them feel comfortable to laugh about it, they have to respect you. No. 1 as a comedian, I am not their peer. You're more likely to get laughs if people feel like they're your peer.
"This is a time to just kick back and laugh and celebrate the players. There's forums where I can pull out the comedy knives and do something that's a little bit more X-acto knife, if you will, but this is baseball and it's a celebration and there's nothing gained in bringing up tough topics."
The plan is to stick to baseball, which is paradoxically both easier than serious but also a different sort of challenge.
"It's easier to not talk about the serious topics, but it's difficult to only talk about one topic," Wood told CBS Sports. "It's like, 'hey, you can perform, but you can only do baseball jokes.' Now you're writing a set that is specific to just baseball.
"The sports world as a whole is different from politics. You go to sports to escape stuff like politics and other BS. At an event to celebrate the people who help us escape, I don't want to bring up the stuff we use sports to escape from. That's not the game."
The name of the game here is just to have a fun, celebratory night.
"When I walk on that stage, the room is going to give me ample space to be myself and be funny, but don't come in here and disrespect what we're doing, because this is a family and we're just not letting you in," he said. "For a non-athlete to perform for athletes, you treat it the same as meeting a woman's father for the first time. It's that type of energy, so I need to be charming and by the end of dinner, you'll like me and we'll be fine."
There's possible precedent at stake, too.
"This is the first one," Wood said. "This is the first time that we'll be putting all these players in the same room and be celebrating them. I want it to be fun. If you want this thing to grow and you want this thing to be even more amazing the following year, I'm coming in the door, man, and we're gonna put these dudes on a pedestal."
Of course, let's also keep in mind he's a comedian and there's always room for a laughs.
"I'm still gonna crack a joke or two here and there," he said. "You can't have three 100-win teams and not mention the Diamondbacks getting in [the World Series], sneaking in with 84 wins. That type of stuff. We had a lot of rule changes this year, let's talk about that for a bit. We had bigger bases, we got a pitch clock, I think there's a number of places we can go."
"Then, the Baseball Gods give you a gift of Shohei Ohtani's jillion bajillion dollar contract the week before the show. So we got some things to talk about!"
Of course, it'll still be light-hearted.
"This is not a roast, let's be clear. I'm not attacking players, that's not what I'm here for. We're there to say you guys are the best of the best of the best this year. I'm a guy who can't get a first pitch to the plate without it being one-hopped and then having people attack me about it on Twitter," he said.
"[Ronald] Acuña had a crazy year, we can't ignore that and it even overshadowed [Esteury] Ruiz almost getting to 70 steals. [Elly] De La Cruz stole, what, three bases on two pitches? There have been a bunch of things that happened in baseball this year and if I do it right, the monologue should be a celebration of the year that was and the players who helped make those moments. And then afterwards we'll have a 'your team didn't sign Shohei' cuddles and hug session."
If it sounds like maybe Wood is dialed in on the game, that's because he is. He's a lifelong, die-hard baseball fan who grew up watching the Cubs on WGN and Braves on TBS from his Birmingham home. In fact, there's a family connection to one of the all-time baseball greats, a link that led to a special bonding moment with his father and his early years watching the Cubs.
"My father used to do a radio show with Ernie Banks, so he would keep a loose eye on the Cubs in the afternoon," said Wood. "The bumper [music] that the Cubs would play coming in and out of the breaks was 'Soul Man' and also at the end of games when they would show freeze frames of the highlights, they would play 'Soul Man' in its entirety. And one day I was singing it and my father heard and said, 'what you know about Soul Man? That's classic Black soul!" I go, 'no, that's the Cubs song.' I got a whole 1960s music primer, but it brought us closer."
His Cubs fandom grew and continued. On Nov. 3, 2016, Wood woke up and got ready for work like any other day. Except it wasn't. It was Game 7 of the World Series.
"The morning of Game 7, I went to work, Trevor Noah saw me in the hall and he goes, 'what are you doing here?' I said, 'I have a job.' He said, 'it's the Cubs' Game 7. Leave right now.' And he looks at the producers and tells them 'Roy's not available today.' Three hours later, I land in Cleveland and I'm at Game 7. It's the best money I've ever spent. I don't buy jewelry, I don't have a lot of shoes, I don't do designer clothing. But I will spend money for an experience."
And what an experience he had in a glorious Cubs pinstripes robe while holding his sign in left-center field at Progressive Field.
The first pitch was far from 💯, but that outfit is still 🔥 though. pic.twitter.com/dvf5T2OqSy
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) August 14, 2017
He also hung out with perhaps the most famous Cubs fan once and it ended up in a place that only true die-hards could land.
"I'd say my best memory was running into Bill Murray on the rooftops," Wood said. "He's just so casually unassuming. I'm trying to think of another person so famous without an entourage. I can't explain it, but when he shows up, the party starts. It's just that type of vibe, so sitting and drinking with Bill Murray ... somehow we ended up down a Steve Trachsel rabbit hole."
Another fond memory? Serving as guest conductor at Wrigley Field after years of watching Harry Caray's rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."
The bottom line, though, is that MLB's first stab at an Oscars-type awards show seems to be in the right hands. Wood is a veteran comedian with chops capable of carrying a show, but he also is set to operate with humility and deference while picking his spots for respectful humor.
