This week, what used to be the biggest North American sporting event of the summer will take place, that, of course, being the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. You’ll note, I said “used to be”, because baseball’s all-star game simply isn’t a big deal anymore. Don’t believe me? Well, last year, the game, which was carried on FOX, had just shy of 8.3 million viewers. In a country with a population of over 335 million. In the 70s, when the U.S. population was just over 200 million, the smallest audience to watch the game numbered well over 26 million, meaning that the smallest audience to watch the game that decade contained more than one in ten Americans. In 1978, 35 million people watched the game. In 1976 and 1980, over 36 million did. Again, in a country with a population of just over 200 million.
Even more demonstrative of the waning import of “The Midsummer Classic” are the ratings the game gets. Last year’s contest got a 5.2, meaning 5.2 percent of televisions in the country were tuned to the game. In 1971 and 1976, 27 percent were, and, in both those seasons, 50+ percent of the televisions in use were being used to watch the all-star game. In 1970, the game was seen on 28.5 percent of the country’s TV sets, and fully 54 percent of those that had been powered on were powered on to watch “The Midsummer Classic”.
Now, don’t get me wrong. The concept of the all-star game is still a big deal for baseball fans. They still vote by the millions to determine the game’s starters, and still argue about the same things they argued about back in the 70s, who should be in the game and who shouldn’t, whether every team should be represented, and whether the players chosen should be the best players or the guys having the best half season. All that still matters. It’s only the game itself that doesn’t. But. It wasn’t always thus.
The first all-star game I remember was in 1971. It remains a well-known game to this day, but we’ll get to that. It was played on July 13, 1971 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The starting pitcher for the home American League was Vida Blue of the Oakland A’s. The National League’s starter was Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates. And, if you know anything about Dock Ellis, you know there’s a story coming.
Dock, who was a heck of a pitcher, is better known today for his antics, such as allegedly (and, almost no one who knew Dock, played with Dock, or saw Dock that day does not believe this), pitching a no-hitter satellite high on acid. Dock also claimed (and, again, many who knew him believe this), that he never pitched a single Major League game without being high, usually on “greenies”, a form of amphetamine. For the all-star game, though, Dock threw in a twist. But, we’ll get to that.
First, let’s digress and talk about how Dock worked National League manager Sparky Anderson into starting him in the game. See, there was no question who’d start for the AL. Blue had had an incredible first half, amassing 17 wins by the break, and stood head and shoulders above the rest of the AL pitchers. In the NL? There was no clear-cut top dog. But, Ellis wanted the start, and, Dock being Dock, he was willing to challenge Anderson to get it. He went to reporters and explained that there was no way Anderson would name him to start the game, since, like Blue, Ellis was black, and, no way was Sparky going to start two “brothers”. Anderson responded by naming Ellis the starting pitcher. Guess how Dock responded?
As Ellis tells the story, there was a luncheon held earlier on that July 13. There was a container of orange juice sitting on the table during the festivities. Ellis spiked it with vodka and spent lunch hammering down screwdrivers. And, that didn’t stop him from downing his usual ration of greenies before the game. So, in his words, Dock was “high as a Georgia pine”, both drunk and under the influence of speed, when he took the mound. After two uneventful innings, things went south for “Georgia pine” high Dock. He gave up a mammoth, 520 foot home run to Reggie Jackson that, famously, hit one of the light poles on the roof of Tiger Stadium and then a second to Frank Robinson. The AL, which had been trailing 2-0, grabbed a 4-2 lead and would never trail again, eventually winning 6-4. It would be the league’s only win between the second all-star game of 1962 (Yes, from 1959-1962 there were two all-star games per year, and one of those games, the second 1961 game, ended in a tie. Apparently, Bug Selig was watching. But. I digress.) and the 1983 game. The 1-19 stretch was the worst by either league in the history of the all-star game.
But, even one win in 20 games was too much for my baseball loving Aunt Hilda. As I’ve mentioned previously, she was such an avid fan that she kept score of every Pirates game in a three ring binder on special scorebook paper that had space for the scores of every other game in The Majors. She often stayed up late listening to games from all over the country on her radio, and, by morning, she could usually tell you the score of every single game that had taken place the previous day. Her team, of course, was the Pirates and that meant that, in the all-star game, her team was the National League. And, after that 1971 game, any time Ellis’ name was mentioned, she fairly spat, “The dumb SOB lost the all-star game!” The crime, in her mind, didn’t quite rise to the level of betraying Christ to the Romans. But. It was in the ballpark. No pun intended.
And, my aunt’s reaction tells the story in a nutshell. The all-star game used to be a big deal. It meant something to the fans, because it meant something to the players. And, it meant something to the players because there was far less cross-pollination between the leagues. Let’s remember, there was no interleague play in those days. The only time a National League team played an American League team was in the World Series. And, there was also no free agency. And, that meant that players moved with far less frequency, and many played their entire careers for one team or, failing that, in one league. So, you had National League guys and American League guys and all those guys wanted to show that their league was better. And, so did their managers.
Back to that 1971 game. Even in those days, there were limits on the use of pitchers. No pitcher could pitch more than three innings. But. Despite that limit, in 1971, the two teams used only four pitchers each, a total of eight. The starters each went three innings and the AL used three additional starters in relief, each throwing two innings. The NL also used three starters in relief, with two tossing a pair of innings and one, Ferguson Jenkins, throwing just one. In 2021, the two teams used a combined nineteen pitchers to get through a nine-inning game. Only the NL’s Corbin Burns threw two innings. Burns was the only pitcher on either team to throw more than 25 pitches. In the 1971 game, Carl Yastrzemski, Brooks Robinson, and Luis Aparicio played the entire game for the AL. Johnny Bench caught the entire game for the NL. In the 2021 game, no one played more than five innings. In 1971, the teams were trying to win within the restrictions of what was, even then, an exhibition game. In 2021, the team were putting on an exhibition and trying to get everyone into the game. Winning was secondary. And, it has been for a long time.
But. That’s not the only reason for the decline in interest in the game. Another is supply and demand. Back when the 1971 game was played, the all-star game was a treat. You didn’t have baseball on TV every night of the week. Here in Pittsburgh, the Pirates did 30-something games a year on TV, mostly on weekends, and NBC did its “Game of the Week” on Saturdays, and that was it. Now, baseball’s on every night, available not just on TV but via various streaming packages. And, it’s not just that you can see a game, you can see all the teams and all the players. Not so in 1971. Again, no interleague play. So, the only way to see an AL team in Pittsburgh was on the “Game of the Week”. And, about half of those 25 games featured NL teams. And, if you got an AL game, it was almost certainly going to be one among contending teams. So, your only chance to see an all-star on an also-ran AL team might be in the all-star game.
But, it wasn’t just scarcity of baseball that was a reason to watch. There was also the scarcity of televised sports, especially in the summer months. During that 1971 season, basketball was a fringe sport (and hockey didn’t rise to that level), so you didn’t see much of either on the tube. But, you weren’t going to see them in the summer, anyway. The 1970-71 NHL season had ended May 18. The NBA season had ended on April 30th. So, when the all-star game arrived on July 13, it had been, basically, two months since there’d been a big sporting event to watch on TV, if you counted basketball and hockey as big. If not, well, it had been almost six months since the Baltimore Colts had beaten the Dallas Cowboys 16-13 in Super Bowl V, which had kicked off at 1:50pm on Sunday, January 17th.
And, it wasn’t just that it had been awhile, it was that it was going to be a while. The college football season wouldn’t kick off until September 11. (Nebraska would toast Oregon 34-7 that day, starting the Cornhuskers on their way to a 13-0 National Championship season highlighted by one of the greatest college football games ever played, the #1 Huskers’ 35-31 victory over #2 Oklahoma.) The NFL wouldn’t follow until September 19. As for baseball, yes, there were the pennant races to come (though only one would contain any drama that season, as San Francisco beat out Los Angeles by just a single game in the NL West), but, aside from your Saturday afternoon game, you weren’t going to see any of that. And, the playoffs wouldn’t start for nearly three months. So. You had the all-star game.
And, despite Aunt Hilda’s vitriol, that 1971 game did turn out to be something special. Jackson’s homer still resonates, but, there was more. Frank Robinson’s home run made him the first player ever to homer in the all-star game for both leagues. (Robinson had started his career in the NL with the Cincinnati Reds). Roberto Clemente also homered in that game, in the eighth inning, in what would be his final at bat in an all-star game. (He was named to the 1972 team, but did not play due to injury.) The game featured a future Hall of Fame umpire (Doug Harvey) and another who would retire at the end of the season, after just three seasons in the league, Jake O’Donnell. O’Donnell was already an official in the NBA and would go on to work that league’s all-star game, making him the only person in history to officiate in both. And, Harvey was far from the only future Hall of Famer in evidence. Both managers, Anderson and Earl Weaver, would be inducted as would National League coach Walter Alston and player Joe Torre, who would be inducted as a manger. And, a whopping 21 other players would be inducted into Cooperstown for their work on the diamond, including Bench, both Robinsons, Yastrzemski, Clemente, Jackson, Rod Carew, Jim Palmer, Harmon Killebrew, Al Kaline, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Willie Stargell, Willie McCovey, Steve Carlton (who, the following year, would have one of the most amazing seasons of all time, winning 27 games with a Phillies team that won 59 as a team), Ferguson Jenkins, Juan Marichal, Tom Seaver, Ron Santo, and Lou Brock. Oh. And the NL bench also had a guy named Pete Rose on it. And, one of the AL coaches was Billy Martin.
Something special. That’s what it was. And, that’s what it used to be.
Things Amic Thinks About 