July 11, 1955: Major League Baseball hosts its All-Star Game at Milwaukee County Stadium. With the move of the Boston Braves to Milwaukee 2 seasons earlier, it's the 1st time the game has been held in a new city since Pittsburgh, 11 years earlier.
Robin Roberts of the Philadelphia Phillies was the starting pitcher for the National League. A winner of 286 games in his Hall of Fame career, he had nothing on this night, allowing 4 runs in the 1st inning, including a home run to Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees.
The American League's starter was Billy Pierce of the Chicago White Sox, and he pitched 3 scoreless innings. The AL scored again in the 6th, to make it 5-0. According to Baseball-Reference.com, when the bottom of the 7th inning began, the NL had less than a 1 percent chance of winning the game.
Whitey Ford of the Yankees was on the mound. Willie Mays of the New York Giants led off with a single. Ford got Ted Kluszewski of the Cincinnati Reds and Randy Jackson of the Chicago Cubs out. But Hank Aaron of the host Braves drew a walk, and his teammate, Johnny Logan, singled Mays home. Stan Lopata of the Phillies reached on an error by shortstop Chico Carrasquel of the White Sox, allowing Aaron to score. The NL was within 5-2.
In the 8th, Ford gave up singles to Mays, Kluszewski and Jackson to close the game to 5-3, and was removed for Frank Sullivan of the Boston Red Sox. That season, Sullivan would lead the AL with 18 wins. But on this day, he could only get Aaron to ground to 3rd, and Al Rosen of the Cleveland Indians threw it away, allowing Kluszewski and Jackson to score. Tie game.
Each team wasted 2 baserunners in the 9th, and the game went to extra innings. It was not the 1st All-Star Game to do so: The 1950 edition, at Comiskey Park in Chicago, went 14 innings. Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati Reds began the top of the 10th by walking Al Kaline of the Detroit Tigers, but then struck out the side. Aaron singled in the bottom of the 10th, but was stranded.
In the 11th, the AL got a walk from Bobby Ávila of the Indians and a single from Mantle, but couldn't score. The NL got no baserunners in their half. Gene Conley of the host Braves struck out the side in the top of the 12th: Kaline, Mickey Vernon of the Washington Senators, and Rosen. Conley would become the only man ever to win a World Series and an NBA Championship: 1957, with the Braves; and 1959, with the Boston Celtics.
Leading off the bottom of the 12th was Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals. The leading National League hitter of his generation, he became known as Stan the Man for hitting especially well against the Brooklyn Dodgers, whose fans would say, "That man is back in town."
Sullivan was still pitching for the AL. Musial stroked his delivery into the right-center field bleachers. The NL had come back from 5-0 down to win, 6-5.
It was the 1st time the All-Star Game had ended on a home run. It has only happened once since: In 1964, with Johnny Callison of the National League's Phillies, at Shea Stadium in New York.
Musial finished the 1955 season with a .319 batting average, 33 home runs and 108 RBIs. But the Cardinals only finished 68-86, in 7th place, 30 1/2 games behind the Pennant-winning Dodgers. While the Cards had won the Pennant in each of Musial's 1st 4 seasons -- 1942, '43, '44 and '46, while he spent '45 in the U.S. Navy -- they didn't win another until 1964, the year after Musial retired. They were among the last MLB teams to integrate, and among the last to fully integrate. By 1964, they had, and won 3 of the next 5 NL Pennants.
In 1957, after he won the NL batting title for the 7th time, Sports Illustrated named Musial their Sportsman of the Year.
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July 12, 1955 was a Tuesday. Since baseball was North America's only Summer sport at the time, there were no other scores on this day.
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