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Sports Watch

By Bill Kwon

Tuesday, July 11, 2000

Fenway game among
most memorable

TODAY'S All-Star Game is a good excuse to take a stroll down memory lane and review some of the previous games over the years between the American and National League.

With seven elected starters out, you might say that the 2000 game was placed on the disabled list. So it looks doubtful if it'll match some of the classic games of the past.

Certainly, it will lack the emotion of last year's game at Boston's Fenway Park when baseball's All-Century team was announced with Ted Williams coming in on a golf cart to throw out the first pitch with the help of Tony Gwynn.

Teddy Ballgame at his beloved Fenway Park proved touching indeed.

Probably no player enjoyed more success in the All-Star Game than Williams, although he broke an elbow making an off-the-wall catch in the first inning of the 1950 contest at Comiskey Park.

The 1946 All-Star Game at Fenway belonged to Williams. He hit two home runs and drove in a record five runs in the AL's 12-0 romp.

It was also an emotional moment because Williams returned that season from three years of war and the 1945 All-Star Game, scheduled at Fenway Park, was canceled because of World War II.

Williams went on to win the American League MVP honors that 1946 season.

Williams' most dramatic All-Star moment came in 1941 -- the year he became the majors' last .400 hitter -- at Detroit's Briggs Stadium when he hit a two-out, three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift the AL to a 7-5 victory.

It took a sports editor to come up with the idea of a major-league all-star game -- Arch Ward of the Chicago Tribune.

The Trib might own the Cubs, but the first All-Star Game in 1933 was played at Comiskey Park, home of the White Sox.

The American League won the first game, but still trails the National League in the series, 40-29-1.

That 1-1 tie came in 1961 when the game at Fenway Park was called in the ninth because of rain.

The NL won the second All-Star Game that year at Candlestick Park. They played two All-Star Games in 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1962 before the doubleheader format was abandoned.

The lowest scoring game was 1-0 as the NL won the first All-Star Game played indoors at the Houston Astrodome in 1968.

THE highest scoring game? Not surprisingly, it was played at mile-high Coors Field in Denver's rarefied air with the AL prevailing in the 1998 game, 13-8.

"Warming up was scary," said pitcher David Wells, who's in the starting role again today for the AL.

It topped the previous high of 20 runs when the AL won the 1954 game at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium. The record 31 hits in that game, was matched at Coors Field.

Only thing, 26 of the 31 hits in the 1998 game were singles as the outfielders all played deep, allowing fly balls to drop in front of them.

At 3 hours and 38 minutes, it was also the longest nine-inning All-Star Game ever.

The 1981 game at Municipal Stadium, delayed until August by the midseason players' strike, drew the largest attendance -- 72,086 fans.

The first night All-Star Game was played in 1943 at Shibe Park, home of the Philadelphia Athletics.

The AL won, 5-3, even though New York manager Joe McCarthy sat out six of his Yankee all-stars -- the only time a Yankee failed to play in the midsummer classic.

McCarthy was piqued by criticism that he favored his own players, and retaliated by keeping them all on the bench.