All-Star game bringing home run intrigue to New York
Eighty years ago in the summer of 1933, the first exhibition game between the leagues — National and American — brought together the sport’s most prominent Irish-American managers and all-round forces of nature: Connie Mack and John McGraw.
Mack’s American League selection had Lou Gehrig at first base and Babe Ruth in right field and they won 4-2. It meant a lot more back then — almost 50,000 attended what was supposed to be an experimental one-off at the home of the Chicago White Sox, Comiskey Park, and two of the main radio broadcasters, NBC and CBS, sent commentary across the nation.
On Tuesday, the New York Mets’ Citi Field will be almost full but the television audience will be as insignificant as it has been of late. Still though, that doesn’t mean the whole circus which surrounds the game itself is any less capable of producing enough fanfare wattage to power a small town. The mid-summer months belong to baseball and the lull before the football and basketball seasons begin again at both the professional and collegiate level offers a clear path for the ball and bat game to make a bit of its own headway.
Last season was all about the pitching but this summer, the batters have stepped up to the plate, making some much needed headlines and offering up hope that this could be a record-breaking year on a few fronts.
A few weeks ago in Detroit, a strange thing happened that brought the two best stories together in one moment of otherworldly synchronicity.
Home hero for the Detroit Tigers, a mercurial Venezuelan named Miguel Cabrera was coming face to face with the vastly improved Baltimore Orioles outfielder Chris Davis.
Both are enjoying an intense battle for the home run title which, at the halfway point of the season, has shown no signs of easing off. Davis has hit 33 and Cabrera is on 28 (as of Tuesday morning).
The record for the so-called steroid-free era is Roger Maris’ 1961 total of 61 for the New York Yankees.
It was a Monday night game in Comerica Park and Cabrera was up to bat for the first time in the bottom of the first inning. He sent a booming hit beyond the right centre field fence, not an easy thing for a right hander to do.
Davis soon followed for the away team just one inning later. He sent his home run to an eerily similar spot in the crowd which was subsequently verified by an ESPN graphic.
Of course at this point, there’s a contractual obligation to question the spike in Davis’s output and wonder about steroid use.
Cabrera has been doing it for a while. Although he did have to overcome a few issues with alcohol including a drink-driving episode, it was not a complete bolt from the blue that the Detroit Tiger could become the batting king last season. He won the so-called Triple Crown by topping the table in home runs, batting average and runs batted in (RBIs are scored when the batter’s hit sends a runner ahead of him home to score a run).
If Cabrera sneaks past Davis in the home run chase, he’ll most likely become the first player ever to win the Triple Crown two seasons in a row. But if Davis keeps going the way he’s going, he’ll surpass Maris and give baseball a further boost in what is probably an insurmountable challenge: recovering the dignity lost during the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s.
“He was the last guy to do it clean,” Davis told ESPN last week when asked about comparisons to Maris. “There’s a lot of things that have been said about the guys who have come after him and have achieved the record, but I think as far as the fans are concerned they still view Maris as being the all-time home run record (holder) and I think you have to. There’s no doubt that Barry (Bonds) and Mark (McGwire) and any of those guys had ridiculous seasons and had some great years, but I think when you get to the root of the record, I still think it’s Roger Maris’.”
Those were strong words which should indicate that he is a player whose conscience (and body) is clean. Of course, it could also be the utterance of an athlete brazen enough to double down on his own ability to cheat the system better than ever before. What’s certain is that Cabrera and Davis will be on the same team next Tuesday, taking on the All-Stars of the National League. But normal service resumes the following weekend when the bumpy road to October seeks to produce the real star.
*johnwr...@gmail.com Twitter: JohnWRiordan
