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Americans dominate baseball all-star games

Sports

Written by Gene Morris

Wednesday, 15 July 2009 07:00

There was a time when the National League’s dominance in the mid-summer all-star game was so great to even think the American League had a chance, let alone believe they would win, was ludicrous.

Other words come to mind. Absurd. Crazy talk. Ridiculous.

The National League winning the all-star game at one time was as given as a five-foot putt by Tiger Woods, the Chicago Bulls hoisting another trophy with Michael Jordan, seeing Venus or Serena in a women’s tennis finals or Lance Armstrong winning the Tour de France.

It was a given. Like the sun rising tomorrow.

And, there was good reason for this conclusion.

From 1950 to 1982, the National League won 31 of the 38 all-star games. From 1970 to 1982, they won 12 of 13.

I grew up collecting and playing with baseball cards. We would play a few games with them and invented a few more.

Like many kids, I was in more than my share of flip games, where you try to get your card as close to the wall without hitting it as you could. Whoever got closer got to keep both of the cards.

Of course, with cards becoming so valuable, this game went by the wayside because throwing the cards was not so good for their condition, bending their corners and scratching them and such.

Back then, they were just cardboard, so we didn’t worry too much about that.

Me and my friends, Cary and Clete, would also play baseball games. I made up one where we used a big button for the bat and a small button for the baseball and you flipped the ball with the button to see how far you could make it go.

The player closest to the ball would flip that card and see how many flips it took to get to the button. The batter got to be flipped the same number of times to see where he could run to.

It was a fun game. We always used the all-star cards. These were special printed cards for the starting players in the all-star game. They were some of my favorite cards.

When I played, the American League always won. One of my favorite players, New York Yankee Reggie Jackson, was in the outfield, and George Brett, the great Kansas City Royal, was a fixture at third base.

Boston Red Sox Jim Rice and Carl Yastrzemski were regulars, as was Boston catcher Carlton Fisk. I also liked Thurman Munson of the Yankees.

It was a tough lineup. And, I mean they beat the snot out of the National Leaguers all the time. It wasn’t even close.

My older brother Terry walked by one of my little all-star games one July, probably when I was10 or so, and asked who was winning.

I told him the American League was killing them.

He stopped and got mad at me, telling me that couldn’t be. Something was wrong with my game.

“That’s not reality,” I remember him saying as clear as if it was yesterday. “They never win.”

A few games later, guess what? The National League won one of my games. I wonder if Terry had any influence on that.

I just loved the all-star baseball cards. I still do. I think, out of all of the designs over the years, I like the 1979 Topps all-star cards the most.

I like the way the A.L. All-Star and N.L. All-Star designations stood out on the bottom of the cards. The American League all-stars had brown borders over the players name with A.L. All-Star printed in gold. The National League all-stars had a blue border with N.L. All-Star in pink.

Brett’s 1979 card is a great one for the picture as well. It is a shot of Brett from the side, looking home in his defensive stance at third base.

Jackson’s card that year is a head and shoulders close-up portrait with Mr. October donning a batting helmet and sunglasses. A very cool card, indeed.

My favorite all-star card from that year is, of course, Pete Rose. He is following through on a swing and the bat is over his back shoulder. Rose is looking toward the field and his front leg is bent and facing toward the pitcher while his back leg is almost straight as he pushes off and gets ready to run toward first base. It is a great card, capturing the all-time hit king at what he does best, hitting the baseball.

Who knows what came out of the 2009 all-star game, back in St. Louis for the third time. St. Louis hosted the all-star game at old Sportsman’s Park in 1948 and again in 1957. This was the first one in the new Busch Stadium.

Recent history has not been kind to the National Leaguers, who as of Tuesday morning still held a 40-39 advantage over the American Leaguers.

The National League was 0-2 in St. Louis in two previous all-star games there and has not won an all-star game since 1996. They have lost six in a row with a one year break, the 7-7 tie all-star game debacle of 2002.

At least, if I was growing up now playing my all-star baseball card game, no one would wonder why the American League was winning.

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