Photo courtesy of Jerry Reuss
There have been 87 All-Star games in major league history. Exactly one of them took place at Dodger Stadium.
Watching the game today on YouTube brings you right back to the era, complete with Keith Jackson, Don Drysdale and Howard Cosell in the booth. Love him or hate him, there’s nothing quite like listening to Cosell and his skills were on display immediately as he seamlessly transitioned from discussing A.L. leadoff hitter Willie Randolph’s OB% to Gregory Peck’s childhood vocation when Peck appeared on screen.
The game also presents the opportunity to see J.R. Richard in his prime one last time. Richard left two of his June starts early after complaining of discomfort but doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with him. That fueled whispers about how he was faking an injury. That talk intensified after he handled the best the American League had to offer. Richard would make one more regular season start before heading to the disabled list and then suffering a stroke at the end of July that ended his career. But on this night he was brilliant.
Richard was incredibly difficult to face. Even more so when you’d never seen him before, as was the case for many A.L. hitters in the days before interleague play. Add the factor of squaring off against him in the twilight at Dodger Stadium and it appeared to be a mismatch.
Richard threw two scoreless innings and struck out three, but he did surrender a base hit as Bucky Dent singled to right in the top of the 2nd. As good as Richard was though, he was outdone by A.L. starter Steve Stone.
In July of 1979, Stone’s record was 6-7 with a robust 4.40 ERA, thanks in part to surrendering 21 home runs. This year he was in the midst of the defining season of his career as well as a run of 10 wins in 10 straight starts during the regular season. He ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant the day before the game and received a fortune cookie telling him he would reach a high level of intelligence.
“What I wanted it to say was that I was going to pitch three innings, allow no hits and strike out six,” he joked. Had the fortune cookie said that it wouldn’t have been too far off as Stone turned in one of the best starting performances in All-Star history. He faced nine N.L. hitters and retired them all, including strikeouts of sluggers Dave Parker and Dave Kingman along with Dodger pitcher Bob Welch. Even more impressive was the fact that he accomplished this on just 24 pitches.
”I couldn’t look at this lineup as a group,” said Stone. ”I had to face each one as a single entity. As a group, it would have seemed too big a task but, one by one, I was able to handle nine guys.”
The A.L. grabbed a 2-0 lead in the top of the 5th when Rod Carew hit a 2-out single off Welch and Fred Lynn ran the count full before homering into the right field bleachers. Lynn was nursing a sore hamstring and considered skipping the game to rest, but he didn’t want to disappoint the fans so he made the trip.
In the bottom of the 5th, lefty Tommy John was on the mound for the A.L. when N.L. manager Chuck Tanner went off script and sent the left-handed hitting Ken Griffey to pinch hit for Kingman. The move was prompted by Tommy Lasorda, who recalled a time when Griffey had burned Lasorda when John was with the Dodgers. Just as Lasorda predicted, Griffey took John deep and the N.L. was on the board.
“I wasn’t thinking home run,” Griffey told reporters after the game. “I was just looking for a good pitch to hit. I’ve always hit him pretty good. Everybody was pretty pumped up after the home run. Then we just took advantage of their mistakes.”
The mistakes mounted as the N.L. scored two more in the bottom of the 6th on a base hit by George Hendrick and an error on Randolph. They added one more in the 7th when Dave Concepcion scored on a Dave Stieb wild pitch.
The Nationals came away with a 4-2 win, which marked the 17th time in the previous 18 seasons that the N.L. won the Mid-Summer Classic, a fact that was not lost on the American Leaguers.
“One more year we have to hear we’re inferior all over again,” said Paul Molitor. “That’s the hard part.”
Header Image courtesy of Jerry Reuss
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