The All-Star Game
The History of and a Few Facts and Feats Regarding Baseball’s Summer Classic
Bygone baseball by C. Philip Francis
When the city of Chicago was preparing to host the Century of Progress exposition in 1933, Chicago Tribune sportswriter, Arch Ward, began to think about a game between the two baseball major leagues that would add luster to the fair. Ward came up with the idea that the best players of each league would play one exhibition game. There was opposition with some team owners, but after Ward went to the baseball commissioner for help the club presidents agreed and the game was on.
The lineup was “suggested “ by a newspaper poll although Philadelphia’s 70-year-old owner/manager Connie Mack of the American League and recently retired John McGraw of the National League were free to choose their own 18-man roster. The cost to attend the inaugural All-Star competition was $1.65 for a box seat, $1.10 for the grandstand, and a bleacher ticket was 55 cents.
The game was played on July 6, 1933 at Comiskey Park as the American League won 4-2 with 47,595 baseball fans in attendance. They were able to watch premier players perform including Jimmy Dykes, Sammy West, General Crowder, Ben Chapman, Rick Ferrell, Earl Averill, and the two Leftys – Gomez and Grove of the American League. And across the field in the National League dugout were such luminaries as Bill Terry, Pepper Martin, Dick Bartell, Chick Hafey, Chuck Klein, Lon Warneke, and Wild Bill Hallahan.
Of the 36 players involved, 14 were eventually elected to the Hall of Fame. Ruth, the greatest baseball draw of all time, was 38 years of age when chosen for the game and near the end of his long and illustrious career. Many critics said Ruth was all washed up, and only there for “sentimental reasons.” They said, “We told you so” when the Babe struck out in the first inning. In the third National League starter Hallahan walked Detroit’s Charlie Gehringer with Ruth on deck. The Bambino quickly sent a shot into the right field seats for the first home run in baseball’s summer extravaganza.
The original idea was to have one game only, but fan interest forced the all-star concept to continue. Since then there have been one or two all-star games per year except the war year of 1945 when the game was canceled due to travel and other restrictions, and the contest is always played each mid-July. There have been various changes in how the players were selected, and at this time the fans vote for their favorites although the managers are able to choose their pitchers.
The game has had many highlights, and perhaps the most dramatic moments were in 1934 when New York Giant pitcher Carl Hubbell was working in his home park, the Polo Grounds, and struck out five consecutive sluggers who all became Hall of Famers: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, and Joe Cronin. Hubbell had a 4-0 lead when he left the game, but the AL won 9-7.
In the 1937 game Earl Averill hit a line drive off of the toe of hurler, Dizzy Dean. When the doctor told Diz the toe was fractured, the player said, “Fractured, hell! The damn thing’s broken.” By favoring his foot, Dean hurt his pitching arm and shortened his Hall of Fame career. He became a radio announcer who entertained his audience with his own fractured rhetoric.
The Splendid Splinter, Ted Williams, became an instant hero in the 1941 contest held at Detroit’s Briggs Stadium. The AL was losing 5-3 in the last of the ninth with two out when second baseman Billy Herman made a bad throw to first losing a game-ending double play. Williams who had doubled earlier came to bat against Claude Passeau. Ted bounced a fastball off the façade above the right field stands giving the AL a climatic 7-5 victory. Pitchers Whitey Ford, Catfish Hunter, Claude Passeau, Luis Tiant, Dwight Gooden, and Mort Cooper have a combined 0-12 record, and Senor Al Lopez managed his All-Star squads to no wins and six losses.
Stan the Man Musial had six home runs in his 24 summer classics, and Fred Lynn hit the first and only grand slam in the 1983 scrap helping the AL to a 13-3 win in the 50th anniversary contest held at Comiskey Park. In 1946 the game resumed after a one-year interruption due to World War II. Williams returned from his military service that year to put a special show in his own Fenway Park by hitting two home runs, one off of Rip Sewell’s famous blooper pitch. Ted added two singles and a walk in five at-bats in a 12-0 rout.
Rip Sewell’s blooper pitch, also called the “eephus ball”, was a slow, teasing high arched pitch that fell over the plate. Ted Williams happened to meet Sewell before the game, and Ted asked if he was going to get the blooper. Rip nodded yes. When Teddy Ballgame came up to the plate he shook his head as if, “Don’t throw it,” but Sewell indicated, “You’re going to get it, like it or not.” The first ball thrown was a blooper that the batter fouled off. The fans loved it. The next ball was too high, and then a fast ball right down the middle that Ted watched go by. Their eyes met, and both knew that the blooper would be coming next. Ted timed it perfectly sending the ball out of the park as the crowd went wild.