The Story of the First All-Star Game

Read Shepherd talks to Randall Sullivan, author of the book 'The First All-Star Game: Babe Ruth, FDR, and America at the Crossroads" as part of our iHeartRadio 4th of July special.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The twenty twenty six All Star Game is right around
the corner ninety six Midsummer Classic except for Tuesday, July fourteenth,
and where else Philadelphia makes sense on this two hundred
and fiftieth anniversary. But how did this game come to
be and where was it played? Answer Chicago's Kmiski Park
in nineteen thirty three, and the man behind it was

(00:21):
a well known sports writer, arch Ward of the Chicago Tribune.
Was his dream to put the game's best players on
the field. Randal Sullivan is the author of a new book,
The First All Star Game, Babe Ruth fdr and America
at the Crossroads, and he joins us today, Randal, things
were no doubt a little iffy for this country in
the early nineteen thirties because of the Depression, baseball might

(00:45):
not have been on the minds of many people. So
how did arch Ward pull this off?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well, he took advantage of the opportunity mainly, I mean
it came to him by a very complicated process that
began with the attempt to assassinate of the new president elect,
Franklin Roosevelt. The assassin didn't kill Roosevelt, but he did
kill Chicago's mayor. The new mayor wanted to put some

(01:11):
imprint on the impending Chicago World's Fair. He thought maybe
it would be a sporting event. He went to the
publisher of the Chicago Tribune. The publisher said, my sports
editor is the greatest promoter in the country. Let's bring
him in. Arch Ward walked into the room and said,
it's got to be a baseball game, one between the

(01:31):
best players in the American League and the best players
in the National League. They said, well, then make that
happen if you can. It wasn't easy. He had to
convince nineteen people, and some of them very tough customers,
the presidents of the two leagues, the sixteen team owners,
and the Commissioner of Baseball, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis. But

(01:53):
he did do it. It took a lot of negotiating, bargaining, squeezing.
He actually had to threaten the last holdouts to revive
their attention to their connections to the notorious gambler Arnold Rothstein.
But you know, with coaxing, arm twisting, and you know,

(02:14):
an incredible degree of machination, train schedules and things like that,
he arranged to have it played on July sixth, nineteen
thirty three, and.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
How did they figure out how did they determine which
players were going to play?

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Well, the thing that most excited the country was that
the fans got to vote on the players. So something
that was just going to be done at the Chicago
Tribune became a national event because every paper in the
country demanded that they should be able to print ballots too.
It really brought the West Coast into Major League Baseball

(02:50):
like it had never been before, because the Los Angeles
and San Francisco and Seattle papers all got to print ballots,
and people on the West Coast, you know, had their
and they actually made a difference in the fan vote.
So it was tremendous enthusiasm across the country. The game
got more attention from the press than any sporting event

(03:10):
in the nation's history up to that point.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
We're talking to Randall Sullivan, the author of the book
The First All Star Game, Babe Ruth fdr and America
at the Crossroads, Randal. It kind of sounds the way
you're explaining it, as if this was originally thought to
be kind of a one and done deal, that there
might not be necessarily be an All Star Game in

(03:33):
nineteen thirty four and beyond. Was this originally thought to
be just a one time event.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, absolutely, there was no thought that there would be
another All Star Game. In fact, some of the people
were convinced to participate on the promise that it would
be a one off they wouldn't have to do this again. So,
I mean, it was difficult enough to get people to
believe that the fans in the midst of the depression
would spend the money to buy the tickets get to

(04:00):
the game. All that. It was only the tremendous success
of the game that allowed the owners to consider it
the next winter meetings, well, maybe we should try this again,
And so they decided to try it one more time,
and the second All Star Game was just as big
a success as the second as the first. So it

(04:21):
just continued and has for ninety three years.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
What made that first game such a success.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Well, the single biggest factor was Babe Ruth, But it
was you know, it was everything. I mean, Baseball was
truly the national passtime in nineteen thirty three. It was
more than ten times as popular as football and basketball combined.
In fact, most of the best athletes and other sports
played Major League Baseball because that was where the money,

(04:53):
the attention, you know, the future was so it was
so closely tied to the am identity, and American identity
was so attenuated. It was so depressed, and the depression
that the whole idea that you could have this one
game that would sort of not just revive baseball, but

(05:16):
it sort of revived national spirits too. It was you know,
it didn't just inaugurated tradition. It really marked a turning
point in American history.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
What were the ticket prices like in nineteen thirty three.
I mean, I can guess what they're going to be
for the game coming up in Philadelphia, But what was
how much did it cost to get into the stands
at Kimiski Park in those days?

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Well, if you were only seeing in a bleacher seat,
it was just going to cost you a buck, which
was still a lot for people to pay sure in
those states. So and but even the box seats were
like five dollars.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Now, you picked. They picked a couple of legends as managers,
and I think they had a great deal to do
with the rosters as well. John McGraw for the Nation League,
who had actually I believe already retired from the New
York Giants the year before, and of course Connie Mack,
who managed the Philadelphia Athletics all the way up until

(06:12):
nineteen fifty. What kind of role did they play in
selecting the players for that game?

Speaker 2 (06:19):
More roles than the administrators of the game. The league
presidents had planned, but once they had the authority, they
had something in predicting in picking the reserves. But the
fact that both of them, on the day of the
game made decisions that went against all the advanced publicity.

(06:41):
Carl Hubbell and Lefty Grove were the two best pitchers
in baseball, were supposed to start against each other, but
both managers changed their starters at the last second, substituted
people that they brought in as reserved into the starting lineup,
kept some great players on the bench, a sense of
penn shitters, and you know, deciding to impose their strategies

(07:07):
on the game over the fan vote and over the
vote of the league presidents.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
And it was also a good game too. Is the
American League one four to two on a home run
by guess who? Babe Ruth Randall Sullivan. We want to
thank you very much for joining us today. Randall Sullivan
is the author of a new book, The First All
Star Game, Babe, Ruth, FDR, and America at the Crossroads.
Randal again, thank you so much for joining us today.

(07:34):
We really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Thank you for having me