Times Change!
When I was growing up in the East Bronx in the 1940s and 1950s, the Major League Baseball All-Star game was a grand and glorious time. New York City had three teams before two of them moved to the West Coast.
The American League Yankee fans rooted for their representatives and the National League Dodger and Giant fans (united for the first time) rooted for their guys. The arguments were heated, and everyone tuned in their radios on game day. Even Boston had two teams, the Red Sox and the Boston Braves. It was in the era of a total of 16 teams- eight American League and eight National League. There were no teams west of the Mississippi River. Today, there are 30 teams in major league baseball.
The game was founded by Arch Ward in 1933, a sports writer for The Chicago Times. It captured the imagination of every baseball follower. We knew almost every player in the big leagues, all 400 of them. We could rattle their names off with ease.
Today, the overpaid star players make excuses and beg off to get out of playing and get a vacation. In those days, underpaid players fought to get onto an All-Star team and showcase their abilities.
One incident stands out in my mind. Ted Williams was batting and Rip Sewell was pitching. Sewell threw the “Eephus Pitch.” It traveled 15 to 20 feet in the air in an arc, for a called strike. Ted Williams, the famous Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer, whacked that Eephus Pitch so far, I don’t believe it has returned to Earth as of yet. Today, they conduct a homer-hitting contest before the game, which I personally disapprove of. I also abhor the dunking contests in the National Basketball Association All-Star Games.
In the first All Star game in 1933, Babe Ruth hit the first home run. Stan Musial hit a homer in 1955. Alex Rodriguez hit a homer in 2001. Reggie Jackson hit a 520-foot homer in 1971. Carl Hubbell struck out Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Fox in one inning in 1934. What a past history!
Times and attitudes change, not always for the better.
