When the All-Star Game comes to San Diego next year, Padres players will be on the visiting team.
This morning, Major League Baseball officially announced that the 2017 All-Star Game would be hosted by the Miami Marlins, making the National League the first to host the midsummer classic for three years in a row. That means some tweaks are being made, because exhibition games have to be fair, or something like that. From MLB's press release:
Given that three consecutive National League ballparks are now scheduled to host the All-Star Game from 2015-2017, MLB has decided that sides will continue to alternate who bats last. Thus, in the 2016 All-Star Game in San Diego, the American League will bat last.
Petco Park finally gets to host an All-Star Game, but the Padres' All-Stars won't get to play for the home team. For some perspective, the All-Star Game has been hosted by the same league in consecutive seasons twice before. The 1950 and 1951 games were hosted by the White Sox and Tigers, respectively, while the 2006 and 2007 games were played in Pittsburgh and San Francisco. In all four of those games, the host league was the home team. So the very first All-Star Game at Petco Park will be an unprecedented break from tradition.