Nosebleed seats at Comiskey Park for the All Star Game went for just a buck plus tax, affordable to many ordinary stiffs even in a Depression year.
Note—Sadly there will not be a Major League Baseball All
Star Game this summer. Baseball fans are
holding our breaths and crossing our fingers that the announced 60 game
shortened season starting later this month and being played in empty ball parks
will actually come off as the Coronavirus rages unabated across the
county. Perhaps it is selfish of us to
cling to that glimmer of hope, but what can we do. Well, we can recall the origin of the
mid-summer tradition.
Give credit where credit was due.
It was all Arch Ward’s original
idea. He was the sports editor and principle baseball writer for the Chicago
Tribune, the 800 lb. gorilla of
Second City and Mid-Western newspapers. Why
not, he suggested, stage a mid-summer
exhibition game featuring the biggest
stars of the American and National Leagues to coincide with the Century of Progress—the World’s Fair on the Lake—in 1933.
At first the two leagues, which had,
at best, an uneasy relationship with
each other were reluctant. But the Depression
was cutting into attendance at all but a handful of ballparks and Ward and his supporters
soon convinced owners that the national attention could boost ticket sales. It also helped that Ward was a crony of Tribune owner Col. Robert R.
McCormick and a political powerhouse
in the Republican Party and hyper-conservative circles on his
own—views fervently shared by most
owners.
Chicago Tribune reporter and promoter of the first All Star Game, Arch Ward even eventually got his own baseball card.
The concept of All-Star teams was not unknown.
Back in the earliest days of the National
League Albert Spaulding toured
nationally and even internationally with hand
selected squads in the off-season. Various star players were still assembling all-star teams—usually made up
more of cronies than a full squad of
actual stars—and barnstorming
against local teams. And the chance to
see Big Leaguers in tank towns and back waters did bring out fans in droves. Now a lot of those same small town fans would be flocking
to the big city for the fair.
Otherwise there was scant play
between the two leagues except in spring
training where many teams saw each other in the Florida Grapefruit League.
Except, of course, for the goofy Cubs
who trained in far off Catalina Island,
California for no good reason except that the Wrigley family owned property there. Sometimes in cities with teams in both
leagues—Boston, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Chicago—inter-city exhibition games were scheduled,
usually at the end of spring training or after the regular season was over.
More than 49,000 fans jammed Comiskey Park for the 1933 All Star Game.
In the days when players tended to spend
all or most of their careers with
one team, even the players were unfamiliar
with each other unless they had played with or against each other in the minor leagues.
Players for the exhibition game,
which was expected to be a once-in-a-life-time
extravaganza, were selected in a system that somehow combined the choices
of each league’s managers with a fan poll conducted
not-too-scientifically or reliably by the Tribune
and a handful of other newspapers. The results were predictable.
The power house of an American League team was dominated by the heart of the New York Yankee line-up.
The American League team under Philadelphia manager Connie Mack was a heavy hitting power house long on home run hitters and dominated by the princes of baseball—New York Yankees sluggers Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Ben Chapman
in addition to hurler Lefty Gomez. The starting squad also included two
members of the White Sox—Jimmy Dykes and
Al Simmons, both new to the team
that year from a trade with the Philadelphia
Athletics.
The National League, by contrast,
still relied on small ball—slap hitting,
singles, doubles, steals and aggressive
base running, bunt and sacrifices, working the count for walks.
Pitching was aggressive, brush
backs and intentional bean balls a
part of the game. The whole style of
play was aggressive, rhubarbs with umpires and bench clearing brawls were common. The team, while talented
and suited for such play, did not feature the kind of legends-in-the-making on the American roster. Veteran Giants
manager John McGraw fielded a team that included Pepper Martin, Frankie Fritche, and Jimmie Wilson all of the league dominating St. Louis Cardinals along with starting pitcher Bill Hallahan. The Cubs placed no players among the
starters. Their biggest star, catcher Gabby Harnett and short stop
Woody English were reserves along with pitcher Lon Warneke.
The scrappy National League featured small ball specialists.
Since the game was to be played at
the White Sox home of Comiskey Park, the umpires were from the American League. And that made
a difference, too, because umpiring
styles were very different between the two leagues. American umpires squatted behind enormous inflated chest protectors behind
the plate. That caused them to have a high strike zone friendly to
sluggers. Sluggers whaling away also reduced
walks. National League players were
used to umpires with padded chest
protectors worn discretely under
their wool suit coats. That enabled
them to get down low behind the plate
and their strike zone was low—from the knees to just above the belt,
barely. They called more balls working the count up and causing hurlers to throw more pitches.
With huge national advance publicity, fans flocked to standing-room-only Comiskey Park and milled
around on the streets outside. In downtown areas of major cities fans gathered to watch play-by-play coverage flashed on electronic scroll signs just as they did for World Series games. Millions
hunkered by their radios as the game
was broadcast nationally by both the
NBC and CBS radio networks. Cameras from all of the major
Newsreel companies ground away from the grandstand roof. The press box was jammed to overflowing
scores of sportswriters from every major and most minor cities plus national magazines.
As for the game itself, it was not
quite the American League blowout almost
everyone expected.
A White Sox bat boy greets Babe Ruth at home after his first ever All Star /Game home run. The Babe even made a rare stellar defensive play later in the game.
In the bottom of the second the
American League got on the board when pitcher Hallahan issued one-out walks to
Jimmy Dykes and Joe Cronin. Two
batters later, pitcher Lefty Gomez singled home Dykes for the first run. In the
bottom of the third, after a walk to Charlie
Gehringer, Babe Ruth famously hit the first
home run in All-Star Game history, putting the AL up 3-0. Hallahan was
chased from the game after walking Lou Gehrig immediately afterward, and was
replaced by Cub Lon Warneke. General Crowder replaced Gomez to start
the fourth inning. In the sixth, Warneke hit a one-out triple and scored on a Pepper Martin groundout. Frankie Frisch followed with a home run to bring the NL
to within a run, but after a Chuck Klein
single, Crowder would escape the inning without giving up any more damage.
Cronin led off the bottom of the
sixth with a single. After advancing on a bunt, he scored on an Earl Averill single to extend the lead
to 4-2. Crowder would be replaced by Lefty
Grove in the top of the seventh, while Warneke was replaced by Carl Hubbell in the bottom of the
inning. The NL looked to have a chance in the top of the eighth. With Frisch on
first with two outs, Chick Hafey
lined a shot to right field that looked like it could be home run, but Ruth, in rare defensive acrobatics, reached
over the wall to catch it, denying the NL a chance to tie the game. Grove
retired the side in order in the ninth to secure the American League's victory.
All in all an exciting, if kind of
old fashion, baseball game that left
fans satisfied and wanting more.
And more they got. The game became an annual event and, as predicted, raised interest in baseball and
ticket sales across the country.
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