Monster 2008 All-Star Game Final Vote on MLB.com reaches milestones as balloting enters its final 24 hours

NEW YORK -- Over the past 24 hours, as fans continue to cast their votes for thefinal roster spot on the American and National League All-Star Teams, the Monster 2008 All-StarGame Final Vote program exclusively on MLB.com surpassed a pair of significant milestones. Thenumber of votes cast in the first three days of voting has reached 33 million, easily surpassing theprevious mark of 23.1 million recorded last year with a full day of voting left. Additionally, theMonster All-Star Game Final Vote program has now totaled more than 100 million votes cast sinceits inception in 2002.

Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Evan Longoria continues to hold off the charges of his closest twocompetitors in the American League, Jermaine Dye of the Chicago White Sox and Jason Giambi ofthe New York Yankees, as each has totaled more than 3.75 million votes. Brian Roberts of theBaltimore Orioles and Jose Guillen of the Kansas City Royals round out the current standings infourth and fifth place, respectively.

On the National League side, Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Corey Hart remains atop the standingsdespite significant challenges from David Wright of the New York Mets and Pat Burrell of thePhiladelphia Phillies. The top three candidates, who have each accumulated nearly 4 million votes,are followed by Aaron Rowand of the San Francisco Giants and Carlos Lee of the Houston Astros.

The seventh annual Monster All-Star Game Final Vote ballot commenced exclusively on MLB.comat 3:00 p.m. EDT on Sunday, July 6 and more than 33 million votes have been cast in the opening72 hours of fan voting (through 3:00 pm EDT on Wednesday, July 9, 2008). The online voting willcontinue until 5:00 p.m. (EDT) on Thursday, July 10, 2008.

In addition, fans will again be able to cast their votes via their mobile phones by texting the word"Vote" to 36197 to receive the Monster All-Star Game Final Vote candidates. In Canada, fansshould text the word "Vote" to 88555.

Previous winners of the Monster All-Star Game Final Vote include: Hideki Okajima (AL, 2007);Chris Young (NL, 2007); A.J. Pierzynski (AL, 2006); Nomar Garciaparra (NL, 2006); ScottPodsednik (AL, 2005); Oswalt (NL, 2005); Hideki Matsui (AL, 2004); Bobby Abreu (NL, 2004);Jason Varitek (AL, 2003); Geoff Jenkins (NL, 2003); Johnny Damon (AL, 2002); and AndruwJones (NL, 2002).