By Dan Shaughnessy, Globe Staff, 07/01/99
Baseball's All-Star Game will be played at Coors Field next week, and Hub fans are already wondering which Boston ballplayer(s) will represent the Red Sox. Mo Vaughn, Pedro Martinez, Nomar Garciaparra, and Tom Gordon are the potential Boston representatives.
But the big story -- one that has gone largely unnoticed around here -- is that next summer's All-Star Game will be played at Fenway Park on Tuesday, July 13. It will be the toughest ticket in the history of Fenway.
Preparation for the Fenway All-Star Game started last August and next week the Red Sox will send a contingent of more than 25 people (not counting Messrs. Vaughn, Martinez, and Co.) to see how the Game is run. Boston mayor Thomas Menino and his convention bureau minions will be among the Fenway fact-finders.
"It's a big undertaking,'' acknowledges Red Sox vice president Dick Bresciani, the man in charge of All-Star Fenway '99.
Indeed. Baseball's midsummer classic has grown into a monstrous five-day festival that includes a Fanfest (expected to draw 125,000 people, site still unknown), and the popular new home run contest held on Workout Monday. No doubt thousands of mitt-wielding souvenir hunters will stake out Lansdowne Street when Mark McGwire and Co. do the Green Monster Mash.
Unless you are a Red Sox season ticket-holder or a personal friend of John Harrington, forget about tickets. Bresciani says all full-plan Sox season ticket-holders will be able to purchase All-Star tickets, but Major League Baseball will gobble the rest. You'll have an easier time trying to score ducats to the Ryder Cup at The Country Club in September.
This will be the third time the All-Star Game has visited Fenway.
Fenway's first All-Star Game was played on July 9, 1946, and Ted Williams led the American League to a 12-0 victory, going 4 for 4 with two homers and five RBIs. The Red Sox were en route to their first American League pennant since 1918 and eight Boston players -- Williams, Dom DiMaggio, Bobby Doerr, Rudy York, Hal Wagner, Dave Ferriss, Mickey Harris, and Johnny Pesky -- graced the AL roster. Pesky, Dom DiMaggio, Williams, and Doerr batted 1-2-3-5 in the American League lineup. Joe DiMaggio got hurt in Philadelphia the day before the game and begged off -- just like a '90s player.
The Fenway press box could not accommodate 195 writers, so temporary press seating was built on the roof. These seats eventually became Fenway's permanent roof boxes, among the best seats at the old yard.
Bob Feller -- on his way to a 26-win, 348-strikeout season, started for the American League and pitched three shutout innings. Williams's first home run, off Brooklyn righty Kirby Higbe, came in the fourth inning to give the Americans a 3-0 lead. But it was Ted's second blast that made the '46 All-Star Game memorable.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, with the game hopelessly out of reach for the National League, manager Charley Grimm called for Pittsburgh righty Rip Sewell. Sewell's best-known pitch was the infamous "eephus'' ball. A half-century before Jerry Seinfeld turned "nothing'' into millions, Sewell confused National League batters with a high, slow parabola that dropped down through the strike zone as if it has fallen from an overhead blimp. Before the '46 Classic, Williams asked Sewell if he'd dare throw "that damned crazy pitch'' in the All-Star Game, and Sewell promised to throw one to The Kid.
And so when Ted strode to the plate with the American League leading, 9-0, and two runners aboard, the time seemed ripe for Sewell to have a little fun. On his first delivery, Sewell wound up mightily, then floated an eephus toward home plate. Williams almost hurt himself with a wicked cut that resulted in a feeble pop, out of play. The next pitch was another moonball, outside for ball one. After sneaking a fastball past Williams to run the count to 1-2, Sewell tried another eephus pitch and Williams literally stepped into the ball and smacked it into the bullpen. Ted laughed all the way around the bases. According to Sewell, Williams was the only man who ever hit an eephus pitch for a home run.
The game drew 34,906 to Fenway and was considered a dress rehearsal for the 1946 World Series.
Fifteen years later, the All-Star Game returned to Fenway on July 31, 1961. Led by Whitey Ford, player representatives from the 18 big league teams spent the morning at the Statler Hilton drafting a letter asking owners to eliminate segregated housing at spring training sites. The West Coast of Florida was cited as a trouble spot.
The game was televised by NBC (Ch. 4 locally) with Curt Gowdy and Joe Garagiola behind the mikes. It did not sell out. Tickets cost $6 and $8 and only 31,851 saw the American and National Leaguers battle to a 1-1 tie, called at the end of nine innings because of rain.
There was some grumbling about commissioner Ford Frick's decision when the skies cleared an hour after Frick sent everyone home. It's the only tie in All-Star history.
Much slugging was expected at Fenway, but little materialized as seven hurlers -- Bob Purkey, Art Mahaffey, Sandy Koufax, Stu Miller, Jim Bunning, Don Schwall, and Camilo Pasqual -- held the All-Star batters to a combined total of two runs and nine hits. This was the year in which Roger Maris would hit 61 homers and teammate Mickey Mantle would add 54. They went 0 for 4 at Fenway in the All-Star Game. The AL run came on a first-inning homer into the net by Rocky Colavito (off a Purkey changeup).
The 1961 National League All-Star lineup had Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Willie Mays, and Ernie Banks, all members of the 500-homer club, but only Mays managed a hit and it was a single. The '61 game was the only Fenway appearance for Koufax, Mays, Banks, and Roberto Clemente. Warren Spahn, then a 298-game winner, was awarded a standing ovation from the fans who remembered his Boston Braves days and said "This is the greatest thing that ever happened to me in baseball.''
Stan Musial is the only player who performed in both Fenway All-Star Games, and the new Sox committee ought to think about inviting Stan The Man back for Fenway '99.
But Ted gets to throw out the first ball -- just as he did in '61.
