Baseball’s All Star game has always been the most competitive of the major sports dream games.

Even today, proposals are being made to reward the winning league with home field advantage in the World Series.

The first game was played in Chicago in 1933 and wasn’t even created by baseball, but was the brainchild of a sports writer, Arch Ward from the Chicago Tribune.

The game was such a huge hit in 1933, that it then became an annual tradition, even growing to two games per year in the late fifties.

Here’s how it all began in Comiskey Park.

Chicago was the home of the World’s Fair in 1933 and the promoters thought it would be a good idea to tie an athletic event in to the festivites.

The local sports editors were asked to make suggestions as to what type of event would promote the Century of Progress Exposition.

Enter Arch Ward, sports editor of the Trib.

He envisioned matching up the best players from the National and American Leagues in a “game of the century”.

As we now know, nothing gets easily done in the game of baseball. This idea was so appealing that it was the exception to the rule.The league presidents were approached and they went for Ward’s idea.

The American league owners fell into line quickly, but their counterparts in the National League were reluctant because of scheduling difficultires.

See, the game was scheduled on a one day hiatus from the regular schedule. Doubleheaders were scheduled for the day preceding the game, creating travelling nightmares to Chicago. Acting quickly, NL President John Heydler merely rescheduled the doubleheaders for another day, averting the problems.

No travel agents to work things out.

There was no players association to consult, Heydler acted with the concurrence of his owners and the game was on.

The managers were selected. It wasn’t until the next year that the world series managers got to pilot the all star teams.

Legendary Giants manager John McGraw opposed the grand old man of baseball, the A’s Connie Mack.

Eighteen players had to be selected. The idea of the game was so popular that fifty- five sportswriters from around the country agreed to monitor an election by the fans.

Al Simmons, Chicago White Sox outfielder, and Chuck Klein, outfielder from the Phillies led the voting with over 300,000 votes. Not bad.

The remaining players were chosen by the managers who considered the fans choices.

Sounds familiar.

The receipts from the game were earmarked to go to a loosely known players association, thus the players had an incentive to appear at
the game.

Just like today.

The managers were so competitive that the batting order was only revealed as the batter actually stepped into the box. This was real baseball being played. Exhibiton game be damned.

The world series managers from the year before (Charlie Grimm for the Cubs and Joe McCarthy fro the Yankees) held special pregame briefing sessions with McGraw and Mack to go over scouting reports.

The leagues used different baseballs in those days. The AL ball was livlier than the NL ball, so the teams practiced with the different baseballs in batting drills before the game.

The AL ball was used for the first half of the game and then the NL ball was used during the last four and one half innings.

The moguls thought of everything.

The first batter to hit in the game was the Cardinals Pepper Martin who faced Yankee great Lefty Gomez. Martin grounded out to shortstop Joe Cronin and the game was underway.

The lineups were filled with Hall of Famers except no one knew it yet, the Hall of Fame wasn’t created until 1937.

The fans came to see Babe Ruth hit a home run. The big guy didn’t disappoint the crowd going deep in the third inning with a two run blast.

The American League won the game 4-2 with both sides only using three pitchers each. The game was played in 2 hours and five minutes and was a huge success.

One interesting sidelight concerned Lou Gehrig.

There was concern as to whether Gehrig could return to NY for the next day’s game in time. The players travelled by rail and it was an all day trip to go from Chicago to NY.

Gehrig was due to break Everett Scott’s consecutive games played streak on August 17th. Being the ultimate team player, Gehrig reasoned that if his manager Joe McCarthy and owner Jacob Ruppert wanted him to go to the game and the fans voted him in, he was going to Chicago.

Of course, we know Gehrig made it back to NY in time and broke Scott’s streak of 1307 consecutive games played, going on to set his own mark which lasted until Cal Ripken came along.

McGraw used all his players except pitcher Hal Schumacher, while Mack only used thirteen of his players, making one substitution on defense late in the game.

Amazingly, Ward first talked to the league presidents on April 20th and the game was organized, fans voted, and the first pitch was thrown in Chicago on July 6th.

All without computers.

The All Star game has been played every year since, with little alteration except in 1945 during WWII, when travel restrictions cancelled the game and an interleague geographical rivalry game was played instead.

Where have I heard that before?

So, when Curt Schilling throws his first pitch to Ichiro tonight, remember back to Comiskey Park, July 6th, 1933, and recall the vision of Arch Ward, that’s where it all began.