Left to right: Willie Mays, Tony Pérez, Rico Carty
March 28, 1970: Major League Baseball interrupts its Spring Training with a benefit game at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. It is named the East-West Major League Baseball Classic, and is arranged by the players to honor the memory and support the causes of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who had been assassinated 2 years earlier.
All proceeds from the game went to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, of which King had been President; and to the construction of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta.
The players' union, the Major League Baseball Players Association, had asked the SCLC for an idea of how to honor Dr. King. SCLC Sports Project Director Joseph Peters suggested a benefit game, and he contacted the Commissioner of Baseball, William "Spike" Eckert, who approved it. The game was originally set for Dodger Stadium on March 29, 1969, the last Saturday before the opening of the regular season, but the logistics of putting it together that fast proved to be too much, so the game was postponed a year.
The West team was managed by Roy Campanella, one of the earliest players to break baseball's color barrier. He had starred for the Brooklyn Dodgers for 10 years, before a car accident left him paralyzed, ending his career in 1958, while the Dodgers were in the process of moving to Los Angeles.
Roy Campanella (left) and Roberto Clemente
The East team was managed by Joe DiMaggio, the legendary center fielder for the New York Yankees, although he was then the hitting instructor for a West Coast team, the Oakland Athletics. (DiMaggio had grown up in San Francisco, but had been born in Martinez, California, on the Oakland side of San Francisco Bay.)
DiMaggio considered his managing gig for the MLK game a one-and-done affair, saying, "No, I never want to manage. Too much traveling. I can't take it." Campanella, however, always wanted to manage, and still did. It would be another five years before a baseball team hired a Black manager, when the Cleveland Indians appointed Frank Robinson.
For his coaching staff for the Los Angeles game, DiMaggio chose his former Yankee teammate Billy Martin, who had just been fired as manager by the Minnesota Twins; another former teammate, Hank Bauer, a recent casualty from the A’s; John McNamara, Bauer’s replacement as A's manager; and legendary Negro Leagues pitcher Satchel Paige.
For his coaching staff, Campanella chose Dodger pitchers Don Newcombe, Sandy Koufax, and Don Drysdale; St. Louis Cardinals legend Stan Musial; and Elston Howard, the 1st black player for the Yankees, who had been the 1st black coach in the American League. (The 1st in the National League, and the 1st in MLB, had been John "Buck" O'Neil, with the Chicago Cubs. He appears not to have been involved with this game.)
Most of the top players in baseball at the time volunteered to play. Willie Mays flew back and forth from Japan, where the San Francisco Giants were playing a series of exhibition games. He said, "This is too important to pass up... At last, baseball players can show their feelings about the late Dr. King and his work through the medium of this game."
Tom Seaver of the defending World Champion New York Mets left his team's training camp in St. Petersburg, Florida, flying in for the game, and then flying back. He said, "If Dr. King could give his life for a cause he believed in, the least I can do is give one day for it... I respected him for treating violence with nonviolence. For making people ashamed, not angry."
Jackie Robinson, modern baseball's 1st black player and another Dodger, watched from the stands, as did Hollywood stars such as Sammy Davis Jr. and Danny Kaye. Kaye had been a Dodger fan in Brooklyn before either he or they moved to Los Angeles. In 1977, when the Seattle Mariners debuted as an expansion team, he was part of their original ownership group.
A recording of King's "I Have a Dream" speech played over the Dodger Stadium loudspeakers. Remarks were made by Rev. H.H. Brookins, president of SCLC West, SCLC president Rev. Ralph Abernathy, and by the new Commissioner, Bowie Kuhn.
Pitcher Jim "Mudcat" Grant, then a pitcher for the Oakland Athletics, did not play in the game, but he did sing the National Anthem to great acclaim. Dr. King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, threw the ceremonial first pitch to the West team's catcher, Johnny Bench.
Tickets sold for as little as $2 for a bleacher seat and up to $10 for a box seat -- about $75 in 2022 money. Attendance was announced as 31,694, meaning Walter O'Malley's monument to his own greed was about 56 percent full. The game was blacked out in Los Angeles. In a last-minute deal, KTLA-Channel 5 in Los Angeles acquired the rights to show the game the next day, a Sunday, at 12:30 PM. SCLC reported the proceeds from the game as $30,000 -- about $226,000 in 2022 money.
The starting lineups: For the East
LF Ron Fairly, Montreal Expos
CF Reggie Smith, Boston Red Sox
RF Frank Robinson, Baltimore Orioles
1B Willie Stargell, Pittsburgh Pirates
3B Ron Santo, Chicago Cubs
SS Ernie Banks, Chicago Cubs
2B Mike Andrews, Boston Red Sox
C Tim McCarver, Boston Red Sox
P Tom Seaver, New York Mets
DiMaggio chose Fairly and Smith for his starting outfield over future Hall-of-Famers Roberto Clemente of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Al Kaline of the Detroit Tigers, and Lou Brock of the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals' Bob Gibson became his 1st reliever, after Seaver had pitched 3 innings.
For the West:
SS Maury Wills, Los Angeles Dodgers
LF Pete Rose, Cincinnati Reds
RF Hank Aaron, Atlanta Braves
CF Reggie Jackson, Oakland Athletics
C Johnny Bench, Cincinnati Reds
1B Orlando Cepeda, Atlanta Braves
2B Joe Morgan, Houston Astros
3B Sal Bando, Oakland Athletics
P Earl Wilson, Detroit Tigers
Mays came to bat once, as a pinch-hitter. He had flown 12,000 miles from Tokyo, round-trip, to do this.
With the pageantry, the game itself couldn't help but be an anti-climax. Justifying his selection by the Yankee Clipper, Fairly hit a home run, and was named the game's Most Valuable Player. Santo also hit a home run. Kaline (white), Brock (black) and Clemente (Hispanic) did all get into the game, and, in the 8th inning, Kaline singled, Brock doubled him home, and Clemente doubled Brock home. The East won, 5-1.
When the game was over, Banks, already famous for the slogan, "It's a beautiful day for a ballgame, let's play two!" beamed and said, "I'm ready to play another game, aren't you?" Said Santo, his Cub teammate, "This is the first game they've had like this, and I'm really honored to have played in it." Campanella said, "I thank these fellas for giving their time. I don't feel bad about losing."
Rose filed a column for the Cincinnati Enquirer, writing, "I played a baseball game Saturday that meant an awful lot to me. It was more than just another game and even though it was an exhibition game it had meaning. In this game I felt I did some good for my country. I believe I've got to help any way I can and this is my way of doing it."
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March 28, 1970 was a Saturday. Actor Vince Vaughn was born. This was also the day of the NCAA Wrestling Championships, where Dan Gable lost as an amateur wrestler for the only time in his career. I have a separate entry for that event.
Baseball was otherwise in Spring Training. Football was out of season. One game was played in the NBA. Appropriately, it was in Dr. King's hometown: The Atlanta Hawks beat the Chicago Bulls, 124-104 at the Alexander Memorial Coliseum (now the McCamish Pavilion), on the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta. Three games were played in the American Basketball Association:
* The New York Nets lost to the New Orleans Buccaneers, 100-92 at the New Orleans Municipal Auditorium. After this season, the Bucs would become the Memphis Pros, then the Memphis Tams, then the Memphis Sounds, and fold in 1975. The Nets would enter the NBA in 1976, moving to New Jersey in 1977 and Brooklyn in 2012.
* The Kentucky Colonels beat the Carolina Cougars, 101-98 at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Cougars became the Spirits of St. Louis in 1974. The Spirits and the Colonels both survived to the end of the ABA in 1976, but neither team was admitted to the NBA.
* And the Dallas Chaparrals beat the Denver Rockets, 150-126 at the Moody Coliseum in Dallas. Both of these teams still exist, though not under those names: The Chaparrals became the San Antonio Spurs in 1973; and the Rockets, anticipating entering the NBA, which already had the Houston Rockets, took on the name of the 1st NBA team from their city, the Denver Nuggets. Both teams entered the NBA in 1976, along with the Nets and the Indiana Pacers.
There were 5 games in the NHL:
* The New York Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens played to a tie, 1-1 at the Montreal Forum.
* The Boston Bruins and the Detroit Red Wings played to a tie, 5-5 at the Boston Garden.
* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 2-1 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.
* The Chicago Black Hawks and the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a tie, 1-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.
* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Minnesota North Stars, 4-2 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.
* And the St. Louis Blues and the California Golden Seals were not scheduled.
And in English soccer, Arsenal played Birmingham-area team Wolverhampton Wanderers to a draw, 2-2 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.
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