Welcome to Sliders, a weekly in-season MLB column that focuses on both the timely and timeless elements of the game.The ball was a promise, from commissioner Rob Manfred to Lyn Montgomery, that Major League Baseball would do right by her husband. This was in April 2019, a month before David Montgomery, proud son of Philadelphia and loyal steward of its baseball team, died of cancer. Time was precious.“He came to visit him at Magee, where David was a patient,” Lyn Montgomery said by phone this week, referring to the rehabilitation center in Center City. “And I have the signed ball by Rob Manfred, the All-Star ball that he gave David that day when he made the announcement.“It was really near and dear to David, and he felt strongly that it should be in Philadelphia this year. So it’s happening, all these years later.”Baseball never awards the All-Star Game very far in advance. Only one has been announced beyond this year, for Chicago’s Wrigley Field in 2027. Yet Manfred named the Phillies as this year’s host with 2,646 days to spare.“There was no rush at that point,” Manfred said. “But we were kind of racing against the clock.”Montgomery, then the Phillies’ chairman, knew he would not live to see the United States’ 250th birthday celebration. But he knew that the Phillies would be part of it.“David was always about the fans, 100 percent of the time, trying to do what he can to take care of the fans, and he just felt like Philadelphia was the right place to have the 2026 All-Star Game,” said Ruben Amaro Jr., the former Phillies bat boy, player and general manager.“Our turn was probably long before that, but he wanted to make sure this was the year: ‘Hey, let the other teams have their opportunities, but we want this one to be in Philadelphia, because this is our birthplace.’”Montgomery, who was 72 when he died on May 8, 2019, devoted his life to the Phillies. He cheered for them from the upper deck at Connie Mack Stadium, and when the team moved to Veterans Stadium in 1971, Montgomery got a job selling season tickets for $150 a week.He came highly recommended. Montgomery had been coaching football at nearby Germantown Academy, and one of his players was the son of Robin Roberts, the Hall of Fame pitcher. Roberts recommended Montgomery to Bill Giles, the new vice president for business operations.“Don’t you need help down there, moving into the new stadium?” Roberts told Giles. “Well, this is David Montgomery. You probably would want to use David if you can.”With Giles’ keen promotional sense and Montgomery’s business savvy — and deep community bonds — the Phillies flourished as a fan-friendly operation, in good times and bad. As Montgomery’s profile grew, so did his stature in the game.“During the revenue-sharing stuff, he was a real kind of moderate, reasonable voice throughout all those conversations,” Manfred said. “And he commanded great respect in the industry, because he was so technically competent. He knew how all the math worked, and it was the same thing with the schedule; if you gave him a number of teams and a number of games, he could give you the format off the top of his head.“It was true across issues: I mean, the way he kept score, it was unbelievable. That book he had, every game, every season, and every single scoresheet looked perfect.”Montgomery took a leave of absence in August 2014 to undergo treatment for jawbone cancer. But he believed so strongly in Manfred that he showed up in Baltimore that month for his election as commissioner. Until the day he died, Montgomery kept a drawing in his wallet that Manfred’s daughter Mary Clare had made for him when the families visited Radio City Music Hall for a Christmas show.Manfred called Montgomery a Philadelphian through and through, which is just how Lyn describes him, too. A proud graduate of Penn Charter and the University of Pennsylvania, he was a fitting Phillies lifer.