Lucey: 1963 All-Star Game in Cleveland was no all-star performance
From SABR member Bill Lucey at Daily News Gems on January 16, 2019:
The experiment failed.
No one was happier than a majority of fans (including scores of players) to see Major League Baseball return to a single-game format, beginning with the 1963 MLB All-Star game in Cleveland on July 9.
From 1959 through 1962, MLB launched an experiment, holding two All-Star games a year. In order to get the players’ consent to revert back to the single game format, the owners agreed to put 95 per cent of the net receipts of $250,384.59 and the TV-radio receipts into the players pension fund. Previously, players received only 60 per cent.
The 1963 midseason classic marked the 34th playing of All-Star game. In 1963, Cleveland was still very much a vibrant city, though its population had been in decline since the 1950s. The population in Cleveland peaked in 1950 with 914,808 inhabitants, the seventh largest city in the nation with a 15 percent foreign population. In 1963, Cleveland’s population was roughly 876,050 (according to the 1960 census), the 8th largest city in the nation with an 11 percent foreign population.
Read the full article here: https://www.dailynewsgems.com/2019/01/1963-all-star-game-without-an-all-star-peformance.html
- Related link: “July 9, 1963: Mays leads NL stars in return to single All-Star Game” (SABR Games Project)
Originally published: January 17, 2019. Last Updated: January 17, 2019.