July 7, 1936: National League stars win at Boston’s Braves Field

Brilliant pitching by Dizzy Dean, Carl Hubbell, and Lon Warneke led the National League to its first All-Star win. The 4-3 triumph was played in 89-degree weather, Boston’s hottest July 7 since 1883. However, while thousands of Bostonians chose to spend the day at nearby beaches, it was not the weather that was responsible for the disappointingly small crowd of 25,534. Nor was it, as some said, that because baseball people had treated the last two games as meaningless exhibitions, the fans just weren’t interested.      

The reason for the poor turnout – it remains the lowest-ever attendance at an All-Star game – was poor planning. The Bees had announced that they’d sold 17,000 reserved seats and would put the remaining 25,000 unreserved seats on sale the morning of the game. (During the winter the Boston club had changed its name from Braves to Bees. Braves Field was now officially called National League Park, although informally it was known as Bees Field or just the Bee Hive.)

Club president Bob Quinn had said he expected a crowd of about 42,000. Boston club officials notified the public that to reduce congestion on game day, the Babcock Street entrances to the park would be open for the first time. Nevertheless, fans purchased fewer than 9,000 of those unreserved seats. Evidently, Bostonians had decided they didn’t want to wait in what they assumed would be long ticket lines on such a hot day. Of course those lines never materialized, and large portions of the left- and right-field bleachers remained unoccupied. The real victim of the low turnout was the Association of Professional Baseball Players of America, which received 83½ percent of the proceeds from the game.

Although Boston was a two-team city, the crowd was decidedly rooting for the National Leaguers, who as usual were the underdogs. “We admit the American League power at bat, but we’re going to combat it by great pitching, by speed, and by generally tight defense,” said National League manager Charlie Grimm. “And we are not sparing our horses in our effort to win this game.”1 That last sentiment was in line with National League President Ford Frick’s position. Frick, stung by three straight losses, felt that in the last two games his league had not always put its best players on the field.         

Grimm named two starters strictly because of their superior defensive abilities. He started St. Louis’s Leo Durocher at shortstop ahead of Pittsburgh’s Arky Vaughan, the league’s defending batting champion and the fans’ choice, and his own Augie Galan in center, over many other outfielders who received more votes. The leagues had increased the size of the roster from 20 to 21, still, the National League had some surprising omissions. Neither Philadelphia’s Dolph Camilli nor Boston’s Buck Jordan, the top two in the National League batting race, made the team; nor did the eventual batting champion, Pittsburgh’s Paul Waner.2

True to his word not to “spare the horses,” Grimm made only two nonpitching substitutions in the game. Both were in the eighth inning, when Mel Ott batted for right fielder Frank Demaree, and Lew Riggs batted for third baseman Pinky Whitney.       

American League manager Joe McCarthy took a different approach. He said he would try to start the lineup that the fans favored and to play as many men as possible. While Grimm’s strategy worked, it left many Bees fans disgruntled. Wally Berger, their only representative and the starting center fielder in the three previous All-Star games, didn’t get to play. In addition to Galan, Grimm had three more of his Cubs in the starting lineup, along with four players from the Cardinals and one from the Phillies.        

Not surprising for a team that entered the break with a 10-game lead, McCarthy had seven of his Yankees on the squad and easily could have had nine. Red Rolfe, generally considered the league’s best third baseman, wasn’t chosen, and Washington outfielder Ben Chapman had been a Yankee before they’d traded him to the Senators three weeks earlier. McCarthy chose to put just two of his Yankees in the starting lineup: first baseman Lou Gehrig, the league’s leading hitter, and 21-year-old Joe DiMaggio, the first rookie ever to start an All-Star Game. In fact, DiMaggio was the first rookie ever named by either league to its All-Star squad. McCarthy’s selection of Lefty Grove of Boston, the fans’ choice, as his starting pitcher, ended the run of three consecutive starts by his own ace, Lefty Gomez.    

Detroit had repeated as American League pennant-winners in 1935, which would have given the Tigers’ manager, Mickey Cochrane, winner of the 1935 game, the privilege of again managing his league’s entry. However, Cochrane was in Wyoming recuperating from a nervous breakdown, and because the Yankees were in first place and had finished second to the Tigers in 1935, the league named McCarthy to take his place. It was the first All-Star appearance for both McCarthy and Grimm, although they had each led their teams to pennants in 1932. Had it not been for the sentimental choices of Connie Mack and John McGraw, McCarthy and Grimm might have been the managers in the first All-Star Game.        

Grimm picked Dean, the majors’ winningest pitcher at 14-4, to start. Dean responded with an overpowering performance, pitching three hitless innings and not allowing a ball out of the infield. He did walk two batters, but faced just the minimum nine batters as both runners were erased on the basepaths.

Dean got two quick strikes on Luke Appling, the game’s first batter, before walking him. He was retired when DiMaggio bounced into a double play. The crowd had given DiMaggio a big hand when he stepped in, but it would be a very disappointing day for the Yankees’ rookie sensation. He batted five times in this game, each time with one or more runners on base, and failed to get a hit or drive in a run. He also had his problems in the field. His error on a single by Billy Herman in the fifth allowed Herman to take second, drawing some boos from the crowd. Three innings earlier, he’d misplayed into a triple Gabby Hartnett’s low line drive that most observers felt he should have caught, or at worst held to a single. Red Sox manager Joe Cronin, a spectator at the game, said afterwards that DiMaggio had played the ball “a trifle nonchalantly.”3  DiMaggio made no excuses, saying the ball just sunk on him. He also, no doubt, never forgot the criticism.    

Hartnett’s second-inning triple, following a leadoff single by Demaree and preceding Whitney’s scoring fly ball, gave the National League an early two-run lead against Grove. The Nationals added two more in the fifth against Detroit’s Schoolboy Rowe. With one out, Galan, now turned around to bat left-handed, homered off the flagpole in right field. After hitting the pole, which separated fair and foul territory, the ball caromed into foul ground. The American Leaguers protested, claiming it should be a grounds-rule double, the ruling for such hits in many AL parks. The umpires (coincidentally three of whom, Bill Stewart, Beans Reardon, and Bill Summers, were Massachusetts natives) correctly stayed with their ruling of a home run. Herman’s single and advancement to second on DiMaggio’s error followed, and after Collins walked, Joe Medwick scored Herman with a single to left.

Meanwhile, Hubbell, the Giants’ great left-hander, replaced Dean in the fourth and continued the mastery over the American Leaguers he’d shown at the Polo Grounds in 1934. He pitched three more scoreless innings, allowing just two singles and a walk. In the seventh, still leading 4-0, Grimm called on Cubs right-hander Curt Davis to wind it up. Gehrig, hitless in 10 previous All-Star at-bats, greeted him with a long home run to right. Two outs later the Americans loaded the bases on singles by Goose Goslin and Jimmie Foxx and a walk to George Selkirk. Appling’s single to right scored Goslin and Foxx, making the score 4-3 and finishing Davis.

Grimm brought in Lon Warneke, another of his Cubs pitchers, who walked Charlie Gehringer to reload the bases. That brought DiMaggio to the plate with a chance to redeem himself. He didn’t, but only because Durocher was standing in the right place and managed to hold on to a scorching line drive that appeared headed safely to left field. The American Leaguers mounted another rally in the eighth. They had runners at first and third with two out and Foxx at the plate. But Foxx, already immensely popular in his first season in Boston, struck out. A final chance came in the ninth when Gehringer doubled with two outs. Once again DiMaggio came up with a chance to tie the score, but Joe popped weakly to Herman to end the game.  

Sources          

This game account largely comes from Vincent, David, Lyle Spatz, and David W. Smith, The Midsummer Classic: The Complete History of Baseball’s All-Star Game (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001).

Notes             

1Boston Herald, July 7, 1936, 12.

2 The 21-man rosters consisted of 16 players chosen by the fans and five chosen by the managers. The fans’ 16 comprised included four pitchers, two catchers, five infielders, and five outfielders. The managers could not have more than two pitchers in their five selections.

3Boston Herald, July 8, 1936, 18.