This day in baseball history: An all-star game to forget

In 1973, baseball’s all-star game took place on this date at brand-new Royals Stadium in Kansas City. It was the 40th anniversary of the first all-star game, and the starting pitchers from that classic — Bill Hallahan and Lefty Gomez — were on hand.

This game was disappointing. The National League cruised to a 7-1 victory.

The American League was missing two of its brightest stars — Carl Yastrzemski and Dick Allen — due to injury. But given the lopsidedness of the score, it’s clear that these two could not have saved the AL.

Even without Yaz and Allen, the American fielded an impressive starting lineup. It featured five future Hall of Famers — Rod Carew, Reggie Jackson, Carlton Fisk, Brooks Robinson, and Jim “Catfish” Hunter. The National League one-upped the AL with six future Hall of Famers in its lineup — Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Hank Aaron, Johnny Bench, Billy Williams, and Ron Santo. {Correction, Rose is not in the Hall of Fame. He is disqualified because he bet on baseball games while he was a manager.]

Things got off to a bad start for the American League and, in particular, its manager Dick Williams. In the top of the second inning, a shot by Billy Williams struck Hunter in his pitching hand, breaking his thumb. Hunter, the ace of Oakland’s staff, would miss four weeks.

Dick Williams replaced Hunter in the all-star game with his other ace, Ken Holtzman. It was an odd choice because Holtzman had pitched nine innings two days earlier. In that start, he allowed 12 hits and must have thrown more than 100 pitches. No one could accuse Williams of trying to gain an unfair advantage over his AL West rivals by holding his pitching aces out of the all-star game.

Holtzman completed a scoreless second inning before giving way to Bert Blyleven (another future Hall of Famer) in the top of the third.

Meanwhile, the AL took the lead in the bottom half of the second. Reggie Jackson doubled to lead off the inning and Amos Otis drove him home with a single off of NL starter Rick Wise.

But the National Leaguers struck in the top of the third. Darrell Evans, batting for Wise, led off with a single. Pete Rose replaced Evans on first with a force-out grounder. Joe Morgan walked and Cesar Cedeno singled home Rose.

Hank Aaron then singled home Morgan. But Bobby Murcer threw out Cedeno at third base, allowing Blyleven to escape without further damage. The National Leaguers had taken a 2-1 lead, though.

They made it 3-1 in the top of the fourth when Johnny Bench hit a solo home run off of Bill Singer. And they added two more in the top of the fifth against Singer.

This time it was Bobby Bonds who did the damage. His home run drove in Morgan who had doubled.

The hits kept coming in the top of the sixth. Future Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan was on for his California Angels teammate, Singer (both were 20-game winners that season). Ryan walked Santo to lead off the inning. With one out, Willie Davis homered to make the score 7-1, the final result.

The six National League pitchers who followed Wise to the mound were nearly flawless. They combined for seven innings of shut-out ball and allowed only three hits. The six were Claude Osteen, Don Sutton (future Hall of Famer), Wayne Twitchell (one of the least likely all stars ever), Dave Giusti, Tom Seaver (future Hall of Famer), and Jim Brewer who closed out the game with a hitless ninth in which he struck out two batters.

Brewer had been in the big leagues since 1960. This was his first and only all-star game appearance (at the age of 35). The screw-balling lefty reliever is best remembered for being sucker punched in his rookie year by Billy Martin.

Bonds, who added a double to his home run, was named the game MVP. Otis, representing the host team, had the only American League RBI and two of its five hits.

Wise, the least effective of the NL’s pitchers picked up the win. Blyleven took the loss.

The 1973 all-star game wasn’t memorable, but in one way it was a harbinger of things to come. A then-record 54 players participated in the contest, out of a possible 58. The only all stars who didn’t play were Jack Billingham for the NL and Bill Lee, Jim Colborn, and Bill Freehan for the AL.

Perhaps it was because the game was so one-sided that managers Williams and Sparky Anderson substituted so freely in the late innings. Nowadays, mass substitutions are considered de rigueur at all-star games, but that wasn’t the case 50 years ago.