Commissioner Bowie Kuhn (left) and Dave Parker
July 17, 1979: The Major League Baseball All-Star Game is held at the Kingdome in Seattle. Due to the fact that 2 ASGs were held from 1959 to 1962, this game was celebrated as the 50th edition, although it had been 46 years since the 1st one, at Comiskey Park in Chicago in 1933.
It was an ugly game. The Kingdome was described as a "concrete toadstool." dull and gray, both inside and out, with n artificial turf field that was a sickly green. And, typical of the end of the 1970s, the uniforms were horrible. Since the hosts were the Seattle Mariners, the American League was designated the home team. So we were spared the powder-blue road uniforms of the Mariners, the Kansas City Royals, the Milwaukee Brewers, the Minnesota Twins, the Texas Rangers and the Toronto Blue Jays. And, thankfully, the Baltimore Orioles wore their white shirts with orange lettering, not their orange shirts with black lettering. But Chet Lemon wore the Chicago White Sox' dark blue "softball shirts."
But the National League wore their road uniforms. That meant that powder-blue uniforms were worn by the Chicago Cubs (made worse by having white pinstripes), the Montreal Expos, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Philadelphia Phillies. Well, not all the Phillies: Pete Rose, and his son Pete Jr., who served as a batboy, wore the Phils' alternate burgundy shirts.
The San Francisco Giants did what the Orioles refused to do: Wear orange shirts with black lettering. The Pittsburgh Pirates wore all yellow. The San Diego Padres wore brown shirts with yellow sleeves. And the Houston Astros wore their jerseys that have alternately been called 'Rainbow Brite" and "Tequila Sunrise," which they would have worn regardless, just that the background was white on the home version and gray on the away version.
The starting pitchers were Steve Carlton of the Phillies and Nolan Ryan of the California Angels. In 1983, Ryan would break Walter Johnson's career record for strikeouts, but was soon surpassed himself by Carlton, and they would go back and forth as all-time leaders before Carlton ran out of gas and Ryan pulled away, finishing with 5,714 to Carlton's 4,136. Each man was the 1st in his League to strike out 19 batters in a game. (Ryan did it 4 times, but needed extra innings on 3 of them.)
But Carlton would end up winning more games, 329 to Ryan's 324. Ryan had the slightly lower career ERA, 3.19 to Carlton's 3.22; but Carlton had the higher ERA+, 115 to 112. Carlton had 4 Cy Young Awards to Ryan's none, but Ryan pitched 7 no-hitters to Carlton's none. Oddly, they had the same career WHIP, 1.247.
After 1 inning, it was 3-2 AL. After 3, it was 5-4 AL. After 6, it was 6-5 AL. All of these had been achieved without either side hitting a home run in the Kingdome. Until it was built, it was presumed that all domed stadiums would be like the Astrodome in Houston, where the ball didn't travel far. But in the Kingdome, and later in the Metrodome in Minneapolis, it did.
Dave Parker singled in the top of the 7th, but was stranded. Jim Rice of the Boston Red Sox led off the bottom of the 7th with a double down the right field line. Parker got it, and threw him out at 3rd base. Parker had succeeded Roberto Clemente as the Pirates' right fielder, and barely missed a beat. In 1975 and 1977, he finished 3rd in the NL's Most Valuable Player voting.
In 1977 and 1978, he won the NL batting title, despite being hit in the face with a pitch in '78, and having to wear a facemask for much of the season. He was named the MVP, and was regarded by many fans as the best all-around player in baseball. Rice was not, despite having won the AL's 1978 MVP due to his heavy hitting, because he was only an average fielder and, as became painfully obvious here, a slow runner. Parker's performance through 1978 earned him baseball's 1st $1 million per year contract, but, when he got off to a slow start in 1979, he faced some nasty racism.
In MLB's All-Star Game, every team is entitled to at least 1 player being selected. For the New York Mets in 1979, that player was outfielder Lee Mazzilli. In the top of the 8th inning, Mazzilli, billed by the poorly-playing, and even more-poorly-attended, Mets as a teen idol, a baseball version of John Travolta, became the 1st player to hit a pinch-hit home run in an All-Star Game, off Jim Kern of the Rangers, to tie the game.
Kern would finish the season 13-5, with a 1.57 ERA and 29 saves. But he would never be so effective again. The following season, he went 3-11 with a 4.83 ERA and just 2 saves. At one point, he told a reporter, "I'm working on a new pitch. It's called a strike."
In the bottom of the 8th, Brian Downing of the Angels singled off Bruce Sutter of the Cubs. Two outs later, Downing was on 2nd. Graig Nettles of the New York Yankees blooped a single to right, but Parker got to it, and made perhaps the most famous throw in baseball history, a laser beam that reached catcher Gary Carter of the Expos on the fly. Carter caught it, and pushed Downing aside to keep him away from the plate, to preserve the tied score.
In the top of the 9th, the NL loaded the bases, and Mazzilli drew a walk on Yankee pitcher Ron Guidry, who had been nearly unbeatable the previous season, to give the NL a 7-6 win. Parker was named the Game's MVP.
Met fans argued that it should have gone to Mazzilli, and the fact that he'd beaten Guidry, the previous year's AL Cy Young Award winner and should-have-been winner of the AL MVP, led them to claim "bragging rights" over the Yankees, who had won 2 straight World Series and 3 straight Pennants. They weren't going anywhere in 1979, though, but they were still better off than the Mets, broken up by team president M. Donald Grant, to the point where Shea Stadium's sparse attendance earned it the nickname "Grant's Tomb."
This would be the only All-Star Game at the Kingdome. The Seattle Mariners moved to Safeco Field in 1999, and it hosted the Game in 2001. In 2019, it was renamed T-Mobile Park. It is scheduled to host the All-Star Game again in 2023.
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July 17, 1979 was a Tuesday, as the day of the MLB All-Star Game usually is. Also as usual, this was the only score on the day.
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