Our All-Star roster

1. Del. Joseph Yost, R-Pearisburg. You may think his bill to legalize hemp is silly — until people actually start making money selling the stuff, which they probably will in a year or so. Yost also stands out for something else: He’s the only legislator in Richmond who has tried to fix a redistricting glitch that means three voters in his district effectively don’t have a secret ballot. No one else has listened to him on that, but we reward effort anyway.

2. Del. Ben Cline, R-Rockbridge County. We called his bill that will enable Virginians to get a four-year college degree online for just $16,000 “the most practical (and perhaps innovative) piece of legislation this year.” You’ll think that, too, if someone in your family ever gets one. Cline’s bill is the Moneyball of higher education. Cline also was one of the first politicians to raise questions about the attempted closure of Sweet Briar College. Just as the Kansas City Royals have a lot of players in the All-Star Game, those who performed well in the unexpected Sweet Briar saga account for a lot of our line-up.

3. Ellen Bowyer, county attorney for Amherst County. She filed suit to keep Sweet Briar College open, using an obscure portion of state law that lists the county attorney among those who can take action when they believe a nonprofit is misusing charitable donations. Keep in mind: She didn’t have to do this. She’s not an elected official playing to the crowd. She’s a hired hand of the board of supervisors. She could have stayed put and dealt with rezonings, but she acted on a sense of what was right — which also just happened to preserve the biggest private employer in her county. She’s the equivalent of the unheralded player who comes off the bench and goes on a torrid hitting streak, which for her extended all the way to the Virginia Supreme Court and back again.

4. Bedford County Circuit Court Judge Jim Updike. Every line-up needs a big bat. Updike wielded a big gavel in the Sweet Briar proceedings. Updike issued two temporary injunctions that slowed down the school’s closure and appeared ready to gavel down a takeover of the school — which surely helped speed along the mediation that finally kept the place open. In baseball terms, that’s the kind of clean-up hitter you need.

5. Montgomery County Supervisor Chris Tuck. Technically, Tuck struck out on the biggest thing he tried to do this year: He proposed the county endorse an alternate route for the Mountain Valley Pipeline. He also earned the ire of those in neighboring Craig and Roanoke counties, since that alternate was mostly in those localities. However, see what we said earlier about effort. Tuck, a Republican, is one of the few voices trying to inject some much-needed realism into the debate over the pipeline — a debate that is so passioned that it risks losing sight of a key fact: Federal regulators almost always approve pipelines. Simply saying “no” may not be the most effective way to have influence here. Tuck’s courage alone puts him in our line-up.

6. Former Gov. and former Sen. George Allen. One of the debates with the all-star game is whether to recognize this year’s top performers who may not yet be big names — or aging stars who may be past their prime but whom fans still want to see. Here’s how this “former” makes the list: The recent passing of Ed Honaker called new attention to Allen’s decision to pardon Honaker 21 years ago. The DNA evidence of Honaker’s innocence was clear, but the technology was then in its infancy, and the law-and-order Republican took a political risk in setting Honaker free. Allen also made headlines recently when he applauded the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage. “Similar to many other people, my views have evolved through friends and associates,” Allen told The Washington Post. “These are friends, these are associates, these are people I have a great deal of admiration for, and the fact that they’re together doesn’t affect me whatsoever. I’m personally an advocate for meritocracy in our society and equal opportunity for all.”

7. Attorney General Mark Herring. He’s been on a hot streak. He was involved in the court case that struck down Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage last year; he filed briefs with the Supreme Court on that, the health care case, and a fair housing case, all of which went his way. He started slow on the Sweet Briar case and made what we thought was a bad decision early on to oppose Bowyer’s standing — and essentially got called out on strikes by Updike. But the mediation he set in motion later carried the day, earning him a home run trot. If he were a baseball player, his batting average would be stratospheric.

8. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke County, was one of the lead sponsors of the USA Freedom Act, which banned the bulk collection of telephone records and other metadata, the first reform of national surveillance techniques since Edward Snowden exposed what the National Security Agency was doing. The act displeased both sides — national security hard-liners wanted to keep the Patriot Act, civil libertarians don’t think this compromise went far enough. Still, it’s now the law, with Goodlatte firmly established as a heavy hitter on technology issues.

9. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., has waged a lonely battle to force Congress to do its constitutional duty and vote on war. His argument that the military action we’re taking against the Islamic State isn’t authorized under the Constitution has discomfited both Democrats and Republicans. Neither party, for political reasons of their own, is eager to vote on such a resolution. Kaine, like Tuck on the pipeline, is batting .000 on this, but in pushing this principled but unpopular issue, he’s establishing himself as a serious voice on foreign policy. So sometimes the baseball analogies fall short.