A sure fire way to make Brian McCann blush? Ask him when the last time is he didn't make an all-star team.

"I don't know," he said Sunday, reddening.

The answer is somewhere in amateur ball, if even then, of all-star games he was eligible to make. As a professional, at only age 24, he just made the National League All-Star team for the third consecutive year.

Even Hank Aaron didn't make the All-Star team in his first three full seasons with the Braves, according to Elias Sports Bureau.

"There were a lot of catchers that deserved to go," McCann said. "To get to go — I'm extremely happy."

McCann got beat out in the fan voting by rookie Cubs catcher Geovany Soto, and in the player voting by Dodger Russell Martin, but he was chosen as a third catcher by manager Clint Hurdle.

Chipper Jones will start at third base in his first All-Star game since 2001 and sixth overall.

Hitting .400 for 10 weeks helped him earn the third-most votes in the National League (3,722,211) behind Chase Utley and Ryan Braun, good for his fifth career start.

He started his rookie year in 1996 in place of the injured Matt Williams. He won the voting at third base in 1998, 2000 and 2001.

"It's a tremendous honor," Jones said. "There are a lot of people here in Atlanta stuffing boxes. I heard a lot of radio stations in Atlanta promoting trying to get me in. I appreciate all that. It's going to be a cool couple days for me and my family."

He gets to take his father, Larry Wayne Jones Sr., to Yankee Stadium for the first time in its final season, the home of his father's favorite player, Mickey Mantle. His father's one request was a father-and-son photo in Monument Grove at Mantle's monument.

"I think anybody who is anybody wants to be there," Chipper Jones said. "It's the perfect opportunity for us to soak up all that's there. It'll be special to take him there and let him experience it."

McCann was chosen as a reserve for the third consecutive year, though he had a good case for starting. Entering Sunday, he was hitting .298 to Soto's .291, and leading him in on-base, slugging and on-base plus slugging percentage. Both have 15 homers, but McCann has 25 doubles to Soto's 23 and outscored him 37 runs to 33.

Thanks to Hurdle's decision, McCann avoided was being passed over for Martin, who's batting .305 and the only Dodger chosen.

McCann made the All-Star teams in Class A Rome, high Class A Myrtle Beach. He didn't make the team in AA Mississippi in 2005 because he was called up to Atlanta in June of that year and it was too late to make a run at the big league All-Star team at that point.

But he made it the following season in 2006 in his first full season. He was the only catcher in the majors that year to hit over .300 (.333) and 20 homers (24).

Last year, his numbers were down at the All-Star break — .262 with nine homers — but so were those of other catchers. This year, the numbers are back on par, and he might have been the starter if Braves fans had voted as vigorously as Cubs fans.

"This is more special than both of them," McCann said, comparing this year's to his previous trips to Pittsburgh and San Francisco. "I think the first two kind of just happened. This year I thought, 'I should be a part of it.' Last couple of years, I kind of went into it blind. This year, I put myself in a situation where I could be picked. But the whole thing is Yankee Stadium."

If anybody could use an All-Star break it's McCann. He's played in 83 of the Braves 89 games. But he didn't want one.

"No," he said with a smile. "This is once in a lifetime, to get to go to Yankee Stadium. The festivities beforehand are going to be unbelievable."

McCann played at Yankee Stadium once before when the Braves went 1-2 against the Yankees in interleague play in 2006.