Byron Buxton is an All-Star again. His most important superpower for the Twins is availability.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — For all the evidence that Byron Buxton has had an All-Star season, the supporting statistics start and end with this simple number: 73.

That's the total of games in which the Minnesota Twins have had their dynamic center fielder in the starting lineup, putting him on pace for the second-most of his 11-year career. Availability has long been the elusive piece to make Buxton one of the most complete players in the major leagues, and his age-31 season has brought a fresh wave of all-around production fueled by good health.

“It’s a monumental return,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He’s been one of the top players in baseball. To be able to get prime Buxton, basically every day, that’s a whole different deal. When you actually see it and you actually get it, and it’s in front of you every day, it’s a beautiful thing.”

His second All-Star Game selection will go down as one of his greatest satisfactions in the sport, considering the path he's taken to get here and the fact that the festivities next week will be in his native Georgia.

“Going back home to do something like this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I know I’m not going to play 30 more years to get back to Atlanta,” said Buxton, who was previously an All-Star in 2022 when the game was in Los Angeles.

Family was front of mind when Buxton was informed he'd made the team. His youngest of three sons, Baire, wasn't born when he went the last time. The host site this year at Truist Park, the home of the Braves, is about a three-hour drive from his tiny hometown, Baxley. Then there's his participation in the Home Run Derby, which will fulfill the wish of his oldest son, 11-year-old Brix, to deliver a towel and a drink during his breaks.

“Out of everybody there, all the people he’s going to see, that’s what he wants and cares about. So it’s the small things that add up to the big ones,” Buxton said.

With five of his 20 home runs leading off the game for the Twins, Buxton has 14 career leadoff homers to tie Chuck Knoblauch for the fourth-most in Twins history. He’s also one of only six players in the major leagues this season with at least 15 homers and 15 steals.

Buxton ranks among the top 10 batters in the American League in slugging percentage, OPS, triples, homers, runs, RBIs and steals, plus a number of other advanced statistics while providing his usual Gold Glove-caliber defense in center. He is 16 for 16 on stolen-base attempts, too, as sure of a sign his hips and knees are as healthy as ever. With 109 steals in 121 career attempts, Buxton is the only player in Major League Baseball history with more than 100 attempts and a 90% or better success rate.

His home run on June 11 was measured at 479 feet, the second-longest in MLB this season and the longest of his career. The only setback was a concussion that cost him 11 games in May, stemming from an outfield collision with teammate Carlos Correa. After topping the 100-game mark in 2024 for only the second time in his career, Buxton has not only built on that injury-prevention progress but experienced the full benefits of being consistently healthy enough to play. Only twice has Baldelli slotted Buxton as the designated hitter this year.

“Once you get those at-bats and get back into the groove of things, you tend to start taking off,” Buxton said.

The Twins, who took a 43-47 record into their three-game series starting Tuesday against the Chicago Cubs, would be in big trouble without him.

“He does it at the highest level, everything he does,” Correa said. "He’s fun. He’s electric, full of energy, and our team needs that.”

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CORRECTS TO ONE-RUN DOUBLE NOT TWO-RBI DOUBLE - Minnesota Twins' Byron Buxton hits a one-run double against the Tampa Bay Rays in the seventh inning of a baseball game Friday, July 4, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn)

Minnesota Twins' Byron Buxton reacts after hitting a two-run home run during the third inning of a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers, Saturday, June 28, 2025, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Jose Juarez)

Minnesota Twins' Byron Buxton (25) is congratulated by Carlos Correa (4) after hitting a home run during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers, Friday, June 27, 2025, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Jose Juarez)

Minnesota Twins' Byron Buxton rounds third base en route to scoring on a single by Willi Castro against the Seattle Mariners in the sixth inning of a baseball game Wednesday, June 25, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn)

LONDON (AP) — Political opposition leaders in the United Kingdom have called for a human rights activist to be stripped of his citizenship over past social media posts allegedly containing violent and antisemitic language within days of the dual national returning to Britain after years in Egyptian prisons.

The leaders of the Conservative and Reform parties also demanded the deportation of Alaa Abd el-Fattah following the discovery of tweets from more than a decade ago in which he allegedly endorsed killing “Zionists’’ and police.

“The comments he made on social media about violence against Jews, white people and the police, amongst others, are disgusting and abhorrent,” Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch wrote Monday in the Daily Mail newspaper.

Abd el-Fattah on Monday apologized for the tweets while saying some had been taken out of context and misrepresented.

The activist has spent years in Egyptian prisons, most recently for allegedly spreading fake news about the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. He returned to the U.K. on Friday after Egyptian authorities lifted a travel ban that had forced him to remain in the country since he was released in September.

But he immediately became embroiled in controversy after Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “delighted” that Abd el-Fattah was back in the UK and had been reunited with his family.

That triggered the republication of messages on the social media platform Twitter, now X, that were described as antisemitic, homophobic and anti-British.

Abd el-Fattah expressed shock at the turn of events in a statement released Monday.

“I am shaken that, just as I am being reunited with my family for the first time in 12 years, several historic tweets of mine have been republished and used to question and attack my integrity and values, escalating to calls for the revocation of my citizenship,’’ he said.

The remarks were mostly expressions of a young man’s anger and frustrations in a time of regional crises such as the wars in Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza and the rise of police brutality against young people in Egypt, Abd el-Fattah said.

“Looking at the tweets now — the ones that were not completely twisted out of their meaning — I do understand how shocking and hurtful they are, and for that I unequivocally apologise,’’ he said in the statement.

But that has not staunched the flow of anger from politicians.

Reform Party leader Nigel Farage described the posts as “abhorrent” and said they showed Abd el-Fattah held views that are “completely opposed to our British way of life.”

“It should go without saying that anyone who possesses racist and anti-British views such as those of Mr. elFattah (sic) should not be allowed into the UK,” Farage wrote in a letter to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who oversees immigration matters.

FILE - Pro-democracy activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who was in prison for almost all of the past 12 years, speaks to his friends at his home after he got a presidential pardon, in Cairo, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Khaled Elfiqi, File)