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The All Star Game: This Time It's For
Real Even A while back Garry Templeton of the St. Louis Cardinals said this about the All-Star Game: "If I ain't startin', I ain't departin'." The politics, incentive clauses, managerial prejudices, ballot stuffing and mindless rules, like you can be on the disabled list and appear, in the All-Star game make the Midsummer Classic in many ways - Midsummer Mockery. Albert Pujols, as of this writing, the leading hitter in all of baseball will not start for the National League. But Sammy (Corker) Sosa, whose batting average is about a hundred or so points below that of the Cardinal sensation will. Read: Chicago ballot stuffers. It wasn't always this way and it wasn't intended to be this way. The original
idea was conceived in 1933 by Arch Ward, the Chicago
Tribune's sports editor. He saw the game as a one-shot deal
to be played in conjunction with Chicago's Century of
Progress Exposition. He said the event should be called the
"Game of the Century". The plan was to give the fans a real
baseball rooting interest by allowing them to vote for their
favorite players via popular ballot.
That first American League team had sluggers like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Al Simmons. Lefty Gomez of the New York Yankees was the starting and winning pitcher for the American League and Wild Bill Hallahan of the St. Louis Cardinals was the starter and loser for the National League. Hallahan fanned Ruth in the first inning, but he was not as fortunate in the third inning of that first All-Star Game. The Babe came up with Detroit's Charlie Gehringer on first base. The 38-year-old Ruth slugged a Hallahan pitch just inside the right-field foul line and into the lower stands. That two-run homer was the margin in the American League's 4-2 victory. "We wanted to see the Babe," said Wild Bill Hallahan "Sure, he was old and had a big waistline, but that didn't make any difference. We were on the same field as Babe Ruth."
This Article
is Copyright © 1995 - 2003 by Harvey Frommer. All
rights reserved worldwide.
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