This day in baseball history, the 1972 all-star game
Old-time baseball fans remember the 1970 all-star game for Pete Rose barreling over Ray Fosse to score the winning run in the 12th inning. They remember the 1971 game for the six home runs the teams combined to hit at Tiger Stadium, especially Reggie Jackson’s blast.
The 1972 all-star game, played in Atlanta, lacked a signature moment, but was just as dramatic as the two previous games. It went ten innings, and the late-game drama included four runs in the final three frames.
The starting pitching match-up couldn’t have been more glamorous. Jim Palmer took the mound for the American League. He was in the midst of a nine-year run in which he won 20 games or more eight times, falling short only in 1974 when an injury limited him to 26 starts. The National League countered with Bob Gibson, who had averaged 20 wins per injury-free season during an eight-year stretch.
I rate both among the 30 best starting pitchers in baseball history.
Both were nearly unhittable on this day in baseball history. Palmer gave up one hit in three innings of shutout ball (to his future teammate Lee May). Gibson pitched two innings, allowing no runs and one hit (by Reggie Jackson).
The American League broke through in the third inning off of Steve Blass, who followed Gibson to the hill. Blass walked Bill Freehan to start the inning. Earl Weaver allowed his pitcher to bat (something that would never happen in an all-star game now) and Palmer moved Freehan into scoring position with a sacrifice bunt. Rod Carew singled Freehan home.
Mickey Lolich took over from Palmer in the fourth inning and chipped in with two scoreless innings. Johnny Bench, on his way to an MVP season, had the only hit against the Detroit left-hander.
The National Leaguers finally got on the scoreboard in the sixth inning. They did it against Gaylord Perry, who had pitched for the NL in two previous all-star games and was the winner of the 1966 contest.
Perry, in his first season in the AL, would win the 1972 Cy Young award. However, on this day, following a single by Cesar Cedeno, he gave up a two-run homer to Hank Aaron. This was the second consecutive all-star game in which Aaron homered. He had failed to do so in 59 at-bats in his 20 previous all-star games.
The National League took its 2-1 lead into the eighth inning thanks to scoreless outings by Don Sutton and Steve Carlton. In the eighth, though, the American Leaguers faced a less formidable pitcher — Bill Stoneman of the Montreal Expos.
Carlton Fisk singled with one out. Stoneman then struck out Reggie Smith.
That brought Cookie Rojas to the plate, pinch hitting for Carew (in the interest of participation). Rojas had been solid performer in the National League with Philadelphia for almost a decade, but made only one all-star team during that time.
Now, at the age of 33, the native of Cuba was making the second of three consecutive all-star appearances as a Kansas City Royal.
Rojas had hit only around three dozen home runs up to that point in an 11-year career. Yet he took Perry deep to give the American League a 3-2 lead.
It was the job of knuckleballing Wilbur Wood the preserve that lead. Wood was truly the hardest working man in baseball. In 1972, he started 49 games and pitched 376 innings (about twice the innings load of an average starting pitcher these days) for the Chicago White Sox. The next season he started the same number of games but slacked off to a mere 359 innings.
Wood got through the eighth inning in good shape, allowing only a walk to Joe Morgan. Little Joe stole second with two out, but Wood escaped damage by fanning Cedeno.
Billy Williams led off the bottom of the ninth with a single. Manny Sanguillen followed with a single that sent Williams to third.
Lee May drove in Williams to tie the score on a ground ball that forced Sanguillen out at second. When Ron Santo then grounded into a double play, the game headed to extra innings.
Relief specialist Tug McGraw set the AL down in order in the tenth. It was McGraw’s second scoreless frame. The colorful, quotable lefty struck out four batters in his two innings of work.
AL manager Earl Weaver brought on Dave McNally to pitch the bottom of the tenth. Weaver’s Orioles were locked in a tight AL East race (they would lose that race for the only time in a stretch from 1969-1974). But Weaver didn’t shy away from using his two aces, Palmer and McNally, in the hope of winning the all-star game for a second straight year.
McNally didn’t get it done. Nate Colbert greeted him with a single, and Chris Speier bunted the San Diego Padres slugger to second.
That brought Morgan to the plate. Weaver had a lefty-lefty matchup, but NL manager Danny Murtaugh had arguably the best left-handed hitter in baseball at the plate.
Morgan drove Colbert home with the winning run. Morgan thereby earned game MVP honors.
This was the seventh time the all-star game had gone to extra innings. The National League had now won all seven.
In the following years, there would be six more extra-inning all-star games. The AL won three of them, with one ending in a tie.
There will be no more extra-inning all-star games. MLB has abolished them. Games that are tied after nine innings will be settled by some sort of home run derby.
I’m glad they played extra innings in the 1972 game, on this day in baseball history.