Classics of the Midsummer Classic
Major League Baseball had its All-Star Game this week. In my mind, there’s not much to like about All-Star Week. The only baseball you find on Monday is the Home Run Derby or some meaningless minor league game. Unless you are in the field grabbing baseballs not headed toward the stands or in the stands where the home runs are hit, the Derby grinds on and on and on…
The game was Tuesday, but usually it’s pretty anticlimactic. There’s hardly ever a walk-off or even a close game. Most of the good players are on the way back to their own ballclubs by the time the 27th out is recorded. I know the game means something now, but for whom? Did anyone know that the only team it would benefit last year was the Kansas City Royals?
I have to admit, I have found some of the All-Star Game history a little interesting. Some sports organization did a survey and it came up with the top moment of the Midsummer Classic’s past. The top choice was when Pete Rose scored the winning run in the 12th inning by violently ramming over Cleveland catcher Ray Fosse.
At the time, everyone just said that Pete Rose plays hard all the time. Little did we know that Pete was probably motivated by a bet he had placed on the game. That’s just a guess, but Pete did get a lifetime ban from baseball for betting on games. That’s not much consolation to Fosse, who was never the same after the collision.
I personally like the survey’s No. 2 top moment in All-Star games. It came in only the second All-Star Game in 1934. Remember, the only place the American League teams saw the National League teams were during the World Series. There was no interleague play.
Carl Hubbell started the game for the National League and immediately got into trouble when the first two batters reached base. It didn’t look good for Hubbell as the next three batters he faced were Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx and Lou Gehrig.
It was then Hubbell pulled out his secret weapon: a new pitch called a screwball. A screwball breaks the opposite way of a curveball. None of the three future Hall of Famers had ever seen the pitch in the American League and they went down swinging.
Hubbell’s screwball went on to strike out the first two batters in the second inning, Al Simmons and Joe Cronin. Hubbell’s new pitch had baffled five future Hall of Famers in succession.
I will only give you one more of the Top 10 All-Star Moments, because only one really stands out. Before the game “counted,” Randy Johnson was a monster who pitched in the All-Star Game. He faced the Phillies’ John Kruk. Kruk had a .300 average against left-handers, but none of them were Randy Johnson.
Johnson stood 6 feet, 10 inches and his fastball was clocked in triple digits. Johnson’s first pitch to Kruk was 10 feet above his head and traced by radar at 102 miles per hour. That was all Kruk needed to see. He wasn’t going to be the next Ray Fosse. Kruk took three feeble swings at outside pitches, bowed to Johnson and headed to the dugout. I bet he felt better than Fosse.
There are a couple of facts about All-Star games that I really like. Did you know only one President of the United States threw out a first pitch in the season opener, the All-Star Game and in the World Series? Great trivia question. The answer is Franklin Roosevelt and he couldn’t walk because of his famous bout with polio.
Between 1959 and 1962, one All-Star Game wasn’t enough, so baseball put on two of them. Hank Aaron was selected to play the most All-Star games, having been picked 25 times. I don’t know how they counted them if you were picked twice in one year.
My favorite was just something that happened, then later say, “The rest is history.” In 1989, Bo Jackson was showing off his athleticism in both baseball and football. He was selected to play in the All-Star Game as a representative of the Kansas City Royals.
No one knew it at the time, but Nike had purchased a huge amount of advertisement time for the game. They were going to unveil their new campaign for a new kind of sneaker, the crossfit shoe. The name of the campaign was “Bo Knows.”
Nike didn’t need much help, but Bo led off the game with a home run and was later named the MVP of the game. “Bo Knows” became a phrase on almost everyone’s lips. At that time of the All-Star Game, Nike was struggling against the likes of Adidas and Reebok, but it propelled the company into the lead of the sneaker wars.
That was a lot better than what happened in 2002. The game was declared a tie. I’ll bet Bo didn’t know that was coming.
