July 10, 1945: Baseball's All-Star Game: A Casualty of War

Scoreboard at Furlong Field,

Naval Air Station (NAS) Kaneohe, Hawaii

July 10, 1945: For the 1st time ever, what we would now call "Major League Baseball" cancels its All-Star Game. This is due to travel restrictions, designed to save fuel for the military in World War II. That didn't seem to be a problem in 1942, '43 or '44, however.

The game was intended to be played at Fenway Park in Boston. It was held there the next year.

The U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard -- the Air Force wouldn't be separated from the Army until 1947 -- formed various "service teams" to play each other in the various sports, especially baseball. The Great Lakes Naval Training Station outside Chicago -- once famous for George Halas leading its football team to victory in the 1919 Rose Bowl -- had Bob Feller and so many other stars that it was called "The 17th Major League Team."

An All-Star series was set up in Hawaii, as seen in the scoreboard in the picture above. Notable names there include both of New York City's great shortstops, Phil Rizzuto and Pee Wee Reese, plus Johnny Mize and Joe DiMaggio's brother Dom. The Army Air Force team includes 1942 American Legue Most Valuable Player Joe Gordon of the New York Yankees. (All those Italian names, and the one name misspelled on that board is "MISE.")

Typical of service ball was Ted Lyons, enlisting in the Marines though he was over 40, and pitching for a Corps team that faced an Army Air Force team that included Joe DiMaggio. Lyons, who won 260 games for the Chicago White Sox, usually a bad team. Yankee manager Joe McCarthy said that if he had pitched for the Yankees, he would have won 400. But on this day, Lyons was quoted as saying, "I enlisted to get away from DiMaggio, and now here he is!"

The All-Star Game would not be canceled again until 2020, due to COVID restrictions.

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July 10, 1945 was a Tuesday, as is usually the case for baseball's All-Star Game. Since it was the All-Star Break, no games were played.

There was one piece of sports news on the day, but that wasn't known for many years: Tennis star Virginia Wade was born.