I began watching and playing baseball in 1967 and my all-star game memories start out strong.
There was my boyhood idol, Carl Yastrzemski (Yaz), climbing the fence and robbing Johnny Bench of a home run in the 1969 game. The 1970 all-star game going into extra innings and ending with Pete Rose running over and through Ray Fosse. (maybe Charlie Hustle had a few dollars on the game). And about 10 days into our 1971 cross-country road trip, sitting in a motel room somewhere in the southwest, awed by Reggie Jackson’s mammoth home run at Tiger Stadium.
I’ll admit that I have few memories of the all-star games between 1972 and 1982, perhaps because my AL team didn’t win any of them. But I do recall sitting in the ballpark or standing in the supermarket punching out chads (even though I didn’t learn what a chad was until 2000), voting for my favorite players to make the all-star team after fan voting was reintroduced in 1970.
Then in 1983, I made it home from a midweek dinner date in time to see that losing streak broken and the hero of my teen years, Fred Lynn, hitting the first grand slam in all-star history.
In the summer of 1985, the all-star game and I were both in Minneapolis. I had no success in the ticket lottery, but a friend and I were thrilled to be able to attend the fan-friendly “all-star workout” the day before the game, which featured the debut of the all-star home run derby – a much more laid back and scaled-down version than the Taylor Swift-size production streamed on Netflix Monday night (without TSwift’s sound quality).
And as it turned out, driving home from work the Friday before that 1985 game, my wife heard on the radio that a limited number of tickets turned in by other teams would go on sale at the hockey arena in Bloomington Saturday morning. I got up at 5:00 am, made my way to Bloomington, and joined the line that stretched and wound its way across the parking lot from the ticket window of the arena back toward the rubble that was once the former baseball/football stadium and the site of the future home of the Mall of America. Come Tuesday night, we had a panoramic view of the game from the upper deck in straightaway center field.
My last great memory of the all-star game is over a quarter century old now. The emotional tribute to Ted Williams by the players prior to the 1999 All-Star Game at Fenway Park. Like the marching band in American Pie, the players refused to yield when the PA announcer said it was time for them to take the field. And no baseball fan could watch that moment, a couple of years before Ted passed, without recalling the black-and-white video we had seen over and over again through the years – a young and uncharacteristically giddy, Ted Williams romping around the bases after hitting a walk-off home run in the 1941 all-star game.
I’ll admit that last night I watched the Hallmark channel’s Christmas in July movie offering before switching over to catch the end of the all-star game. And I’ll admit to falling asleep in front of the television before the game ended. Such is life. When I woke up to shut off the TV, the notice on my phone told me that the AL had won.
A Different World
Baseball isn’t the same and doesn’t hold the same place in the national zeitgeist and psyche that it did in 1999, 1967, or way, way back in 1933 when Chicago sports editor Arch Ward came up with the idea for baseball’s all-star game and dubbed it The Midsummer Classic. Baseball is no longer the national pastime, surpassed first by football (American) and then by doom scrolling on social media.
TV ratings for the all-star game peaked decades ago. Last night’s game was expected to draw only a third of the viewers of each of the World Cup semi-final games that surrounded it; and that’s just US viewers; worldwide, multiply the football viewers by ten.
And although a nice game, last night’s game was hardly a classic. Rather, it was typical for baseball in 2026. Exactly half of the 54 outs in the game came on strikeouts. And if you add in walks and the player hit by a pitch, 50% of all plate appearances ended without the ball being put in play. Seven of the ten hits in the game were singles. All but one of the runs scored came in the first inning. Perhaps, in a way, baseball is becoming football (not American).
As the world moves forward at breakneck speed, baseball inches forward cautiously with one eye always in the rear view mirror. I get that the game was in Philadelphia, America 250, and all that, but there was just something too on the nose last night in having the all-stars of today recreate the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
On the other hand, could it be any other way?
G’head (as they say in Philly). Connect the Boys of Summer to the Sons of Liberty.
Memories of The Way We Were
By its very nature, baseball is a game designed to hearken to the past.
Baseball’s zeal about protecting its precious records and trends may be second only to NAEP. Every baseball fan knows about “the asterisk” just as every NAEP fan knows about the bridge studies. If I close my eyes, I can see Andrew Ho delivering the famous James Earl Jones speech from Field of Dreams.
But I digress.
The beauty of baseball is that it holds tight to those records and the players who secured them long after it makes sense to do so, long after so much has changed, long after the statistics that they are based on have been devalued in the face of more advanced statistics and analytics.
The beauty of baseball has always been the memories it evokes. Memories of its stars and memories of games played, sure, but more importantly, memories of time spent sitting in the bleachers with friends or along the first base line with your dad. The last game with your grandfather. The first Yankees game at Fenway with your daughter – the sky awash with blimps (yes, there were two of them).
The beauty of baseball is that it gives you time to think, time to reminisce, time to share stories between pitches. You do it while watching the game at the ballpark, on television in your living room, or following along on the MLB app. They do it in the broadcast booth.
In a different way than attending a movie, play, or concert, baseball is an interactive social experience that goes beyond the action on the field. You’re supposed to remember and you’re supposed to share. I’ve been to baseball games alone, and sure, it’s fun, but it’s not the same. Baseball with others is So Good, So Good.
Even with the pitch clock, baseball is untimed and timeless.
The bloom may be off its rose but give me the American classic and that old time baseball religion.
Cue up John Fogerty’s Centerfield.
Buy me some peanuts and crackerjack, and I’ll always root, root, root for the home team.
Embrace the Absurd 