The Major League Baseball All-Star Games of the Thirties

The Major League Baseball All-Star Game is a summer staple in America, with the best players in both leagues facing off against each other in the only sport where the All-Star Game means anything. Football’s Pro Bowl, the NBA and the NHL’s All-Star Games are all either played with special rules or at half speed by the contestants, in order to avoid injuries; the Major League Baseball All-Star game has no such restrictions and is always hotly contested. Over the many years since 1933, when the Major League Baseball All-Star Game was first played, it has had some high drama associated with it. Her we will look at the Major League baseball All-Star Games played during the decade of the Thirties, when baseball was almost literally “the only game in town”.

On July 6th, 1933, the initial Major League Baseball All-Star Game was played at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, to coincide with the Windy City’s “Century of Progress” Exposition. Legends John McGraw and Connie Mack were the managers; they and the fans selected the players for the first Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Future Hall of Famers such as Chuck Klein, Pie Traynor, Bill Terry, Carl Hubbell, and Paul Waner graced the National League squad, while Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Al Simmons, Joe Cronin, Lefty Gomez, and Lefty Grove were on the American League side. Gomez, a pitcher, singled in Jimmy Dykes with the first Major League Baseball All-Star Game run, and Ruth swatted the first homer, a drive into the right field seats with Charlie Gehringer on board in the bottom of the third inning. The National League tallied two runs in the sixth, but pinch hitter Earl Averill, another future Hall inductee, singled in an insurance run in the last half of that frame, and the American League won the first Major League Baseball All-Star Game by a count of 4-2.

One of baseball’s most renowned displays of pitching prowess came during the second Major League Baseball All-Star Game, held at the Polo Grounds on July 10th, 1934. The hometown Giants own Carl Hubbell, possessing the most baffling screwball in the annals of baseball, started for the National League and was quickly in trouble. Charlie Gehringer led off with a single, and when Hubbell walked Heinie Manush to put two on with none out, Ruth, Gehrig, and Jimmie Foxx were next up. Hubbell proceeded to strike the “Bambino” out looking on a screwball, and Gehrig went down swinging. Lou reportedly told Foxx that he “might as well cut. It won’t get any higher” as he walked past him and back to the dugout. Foxx had the same lack of success as the pair of Bronx Bombers had had, and Hubbell was out of the inning. When he took the mound to start the second, he also fanned Al Simmons and Joe Cronin, giving “King Carl” the achievement of having struck out what would one day be five Hall of Fame batters in a row in the second Major League Baseball All-Star Game. However, the American League finally found their hitting shoes against the other NL hurlers, winning the game 9-7.

A huge crowd filled Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium for the third Major League Baseball All-Star Game on July 8th, 1935. Jimmie Foxx, who was playing third so that Lou Gehrig could play his customary first base position, slammed a home run in the bottom of the first, the game’s only round tripper. Philadelphia’s Al Simmons, making his last Major League Baseball All-Star Game appearance, went 2 for 4, and wound up 6 for 13 lifetime in the game that was now being hailed as a “midsummer classic”. The American League won 4-1 for their third consecutive Major League Baseball All-Star Game victory.

Carl Hubbell and the Cardinal’s Dizzy Dean finally helped the National League put one in the win column on July 7th, 1936. This pair of moundsmen would combine to go 50-19 that season, and they shut down the American League, allowing only two hits for six innings. The National League club built a 4-0 lead, and then withstood an American League rally, complete with a Lou Gehrig homer, to hold on 4-3 for their first Major League Baseball All-Star Game win. The first rookie to start in a Major League All-Star Game, Joe DiMaggio of the Yankees, who was hitting .358, had one of his worst games as a pro. The “Yankee Clipper” went 0 for 5 and committed a pair of costly errors, an All-Star Game debut he would surely not look back on with fond memories. The fourth Major League Baseball All-Star Game was played at Braves’ Field in Boston, but when the local papers mistakenly assured fans the game was a sell-out, some 15,000 seats wound up empty; the 25,556 attendance figure remains the lowest for any Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

The outcome of the fifth Major League Baseball All-Star Game, in Washington’s Griffith Stadium on July 7th, 1937, was secondary to what happened to Dizzy Dean’s career because of one play. In the third inning, Earl Averill of the Indians lined a ball off of Dean’s foot. The ball was turned into an infield out, but Dean had broken his toe. The biggest drawing card in the game now that Ruth had retired, Dizzy Dean had already won 121 games in his first six full seasons; he would win only 29 more for the rest of his career. Coming back too soon from the injury, Dean altered his pitching mechanics and wound up with arm trouble that he could never shake. As for the fifth Major League Baseball All-Star Game, the American League, behind great Yankee performances, won 8-3. Red Rolfe, Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Bill Dickey totaled 7 of the American League’s 13 hits, with Gehrig, the “Iron Horse” accumulating a homer and four RBI.

One of the strangest plays to occur in a Major League Baseball All-Star Game, or any game for that matter, highlighted the sixth All-Star contest on July 6th, 1938 at Cincinnati’s Crosly Field. Leo Durocher was trying to sacrifice Frank McCormick to second in the seventh inning, as the National League was nursing a 2-0 lead. When third baseman Jimmie Foxx fielded the bunt, he threw it over Gehrig’s head at first and down the right field line. Joe DiMaggio, who was in right field, tracked the ball down and threw it home. The ball sailed over catcher Bill Dickey’s head and McCormick scored easily. Durocher, who never stopped running, also scored on his “home run bunt”, giving the National League a 4-0 lead. They eventually won the sixth Major League Baseball All-Star Game 4-1, with Johnny Vander Meer, who pitched back to back no-hitters that season at the age of 23, as the winning pitcher. Lefty Gomez, making his fifth Major League Baseball All-Star Game start, was the loser.

Pitching dominated when the Major League Baseball All-Star Game made its first appearance at Yankee Stadium, on July 11th, 1939. Manager Joe McCarthy started six Yankee players and hurler Red Ruffing. New York’s Ruffing, Detroit’s Tommy Bridges, and Cleveland’s Bob Feller allowed but six hits between them, with Feller going the last 3 and 2/3 innings, giving up only one hit. “Rapid Robert”, who was but 19 years old at the time and already in his third season when he entered that Major League Baseball All-Star Game, would win 266 games in 18 seasons in baseball. He was asked long after this game if he was nervous coming in from the bullpen that day to face the best the National League had to offer. Feller answered,”I was never nervous on a pitching mound. I just reared back and let them fly’. The American League got a DiMaggio home run while taking the final Major League All-Star Game of the Thirties by the score of 3-1.