Review: 1964 All Star Game (Partial)

The 1964 All-Star Game is considered one of the most exciting games in the classic’s history.  Only 3 of the 9 innings didn’t feature scoring.  The game featured two solo homeruns by Ken Boyer and Billy Williams in the 4^th.   The National League would come from behind to win on a 3-run walk off homerun by Johnny Callison.  

Unfortunately, we don’t see any of that.

After the jump, we will discuss this recent offering of yet another 1960’s All-Star Game.

The 399th Homerun for 'The Duke of ... Coogan's Bluff'?

It is jarring.  You don't expect it.  You're watching the ball jump off the bat and your brain is conditioned to think it is a routine flyball.  As the camera pans to the right, it just appears.  The right field stands at the Polo Grounds.  That is where Duke Snider's 399th career homerun landed in an unearthed video clip from MLB.com.  

This isn't the only homerun we've ever seen in the Polo Grounds, however (to my knowledge) it is the only broadcast footage of a homerun in the iconic stadium.  The Polo Grounds was the home of the New York Yankees until 1922, the Giants until 1957 and the Mets for the 1962 and 1963 seasons.  The ballpark hosted two All-Star games, neither televised and the 1951 and 1954 World Series, both of which were televised but no broadcast material survives.  Probably the most famous game ever played at The Grounds was Game 3 of the 1951 NL Playoff.  Despite the WPIX broadcast being transmitted coast-to-coast by NBC, no broadcast footage from this game survives either.   

 After the jump, we will talk about the game, the call and the true star of the clip: the ballpark.

From Maz to Sandy to Gibby: Game 7s (Kinescoped)

To restate the old sportscaster’s adage: There are no two more exciting words in sports than ‘Game Seven’.  Tonight, we will be treated to only the second World Series Game 7 in 11 years.  The last one (2011) was personally a thrill for this Cardinals fan but certainly not the most dramatic of contests.    This prolonged drought of penultimate Fall Classic games is a far cry from how baseball seasons regularly concluded during the kinescope era.  From the inaugural broadcast in 1947 thru the dramatic 1975 tilt, there were 16 World Series that took all seven games. 

Some of these were defining moments for franchises or the sport as a whole, creating iconic images that are instantly recognizable.  Of these 16 games during this period, only 7 have survived.  Below is a look at the Game 7s, how they turned out and which ones we are lucky to still have.

The 1972 Season: What has survived?

The charm of baseball exists in the peaks and valleys of a full season.  If you catch a World Series or a playoff game, you are getting a truly small sample size.  The six month scale of a season is what allows sabermetrics to have almost enough data to be relevant and allows fans to develop an opinion of their team’s players.  The World Series or All-Star game does not tell us the narrative of the season.  Instead, we get to hear the opinions of writers and broadcasters formulated through the lens of history, rather than as it is seen unfolding.   If baseball broadcasts today were archived in the scattered manner of years past, fans 30 years from now wouldn’t get to appreciate the two month long phenomenon of Puig-mania from 2013 or other like stories that come and go during the marathon of a season. 

When trying to find the most complete sampling of the oldest baseball season, it becomes a tough task with surviving baseball broadcasts.  While there are a few seasons with the All-Star Game and the entire World Series (1965, 1968) very few regular season games exist to flesh out a season.   Rolling back through the years, the 1972 season stands out, if for no other reason, because of the high volume of retained broadcast footage.

"the best stuff (Lefty) ever had..."

The seven years Steve Carlton spent as a Cardinal are often just a footnote in his bio.  Most of that comes from how dominate he was as a member of the Phillies and part of that comes from being overshadowed by his teammate while a Redbird, Bob Gibson.  Despite living in that long shadow, the 24 year old left-hander would step out from it (and into the darkness of storm clouds) at least for one special night.

Sandy Koufax, Bob Feller and Don Wilson all held the modern MLB record with 18 strikeouts in a game.  Steve Carlton would write his name one strikeout better than those men while at the same time claiming a dubious honor.  More rare than a Perfect Game, an 18+ strikeout nine inning game has only happened 20 times since 1900.  Even rarer is striking out that many batters and losing a nine inning game.  Carlton's game is one of only four such games since 1900.  

How do we know that this is the Steve Carlton 19 strikeout game?  It takes a bit of sleuthing but with the evidence provided, it is pretty conclusive.  

Our summer of much-content

With today's post, we kick off the Opening Day weekend.  If Major League Baseball can start the season two weeks early in Australia, we can start the season on a Saturday.  The first post going up is a record tying performance not thought to be captured on video.  The stream of content we have weekly this summer will see Homerun Kings, DVD reviews, pennant clinchers, expansion teams and whatever surprise footage pops up.  

We've got over 25 weeks until the playoffs, so here's to fun-filled summer!

Tom Seaver's no-hit bid broken up after 25 outs.  Footage courtesy of WGN.

One He Got at Shea

If I told you to name the Top 3 triples hitters in Cardinals history, I'd imagine at least one of those 3 names would include Lou Brock. If it did, you'd be wrong. Lou actually was 4th All-Time on the Cardinals triple list and as another testiment to his greatness, Stan Musial tops the list with 36 more in his career.

But this post is only about one of Lou Brock's triples, one he hit into the spacious right centerfield gap at Shea Stadium.

(Bob) Moose hunting

This now marks the THIRD reference to Bob Moose on this blog. When we reached the 2nd reference, I remarked how improbable even that instance was.

Bob Moose, who tragically died in an automobile accident on his 29th birthday, authored the 2nd No Hitter in Shea Stadium history. This achievement came on September 20, 1969.

I really didn't think any footage from this game existed, however I was watching a Pirates/Cubs game on Memorial Day when this clip was shown during a commercial break.