Major League Baseball Hosts First All-Star Game

On July 6, 1933, Major League Baseball (MLB) hosts its first ever All-Star Baseball Game. The American League wins 4-2 at Comiskey Park, the home of the Chicago White Sox.

The All-Star game, also known as the "Midsummer Classic", is an annual baseball exhibition game between players from the National League and the American League.

Currently selected by the fans are the starting fielders, while each teams head manager decides the pitchers, managers and players for reserves.

The game usually occurs on the second Tuesday in July and marks the symbolic halfway point in the Major League Baseball season (though not the mathematical halfway point; in most seasons, that actually takes place one week earlier). The league goes into an All-Star break, with no regular-season games scheduled on the day before or the day after. From 1959 to 1962, two all-star games were held each season, but this format was abandoned.

Unlike all star games in other sports, the baseball players usually wear their own team uniforms, with the home team dawning a white uniform and the road team dawning a grey uniform.

The first All-Star Game was held as part of the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois, at Comiskey Park and was the brainchild of Arch Ward, then sports editor for the Chicago Tribune. Initially intended to be a one-time event, its great success resulted in making the game an annual one.

Ward's contribution was recognized by Major League Baseball in 1962 with the creation of the "Arch Ward Trophy", given to the All-Star Game's most valuable player each year.

The game's venue traditionally alternates between the two leagues every year. This tradition has been broken twice.

The first time was in 1951, when the American League's Detroit Tigers hosted the annual game as part of the city's two hundred and fiftieth birthday.

A ticket to the MLB's first All-Star Game.

It was broken again in 2007, when the National League's San Francisco Giants were the host for the 2007 All-Star Game. That scheduling set it up so the 2008 game could be held in the American League stadium for the scheduled final season at Yankee Stadium in New York.

As of 2009, an American League stadium is scheduled to host the all-star game in even-numbered years and a National League stadium in odd-numbered years.

The "home team" is the league in which the host franchise plays its games.

The criteria for choosing the venue are subjective; for the most part, cities with new parks and cities who have not hosted the game in a long time – or ever – tend to get the nod.

In the first two decades of the game, ballparks in Philadelphia and St. Louis were home to more than one team.

This led to some shorter-than-usual gaps between the use of those two ballparks: Shibe Park (later known as Connie Mack Stadium) in Philadelphia and Sportsman's Park (the third ballpark with that name; later known as Busch Stadium, the first of three stadiums with that name) in St. Louis. In Philadelphia, the AL’s Athletics hosted the game in 1943, and the NL's Phillies in 1952. In St. Louis, the National League's Cardinals hosted the game in 1940, and the American League's Browns in 1948.

To date, only two franchises have never hosted a game: the Miami Marlins (although scheduled to host the game in 2000, Major League Baseball moved the game to Atlanta), and the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Washington Nationals franchise hosted the game when they were the Montreal Expos, and All-Star Games have been played in the District of Columbia, hosted by both incarnations of the Washington Senators (now the Minnesota Twins and the Texas Rangers).

Of the remaining 28 franchises, the New York Mets have gone the longest period without hosting since their sole hosting duty in 1964, but this streak will come to an end in next week. The Dodgers will then become the team with the longest active hosting drought (1980).

 

A total of 84 All-Star Games have been played (including two games per year from 1959-1962), with the National League winning 43, the American League 39, and two ties.

The All-Star Game has seen several "eras" in which one league tended to dominate.

From 1933 to 1949, the American League won 12 out of the first 16.

The National League dominated from 1950 to 1987, winning 33 of 42 with 1 tie. This included a stretch from 1963 to 1982 when it won 19 of 20, including 11 in a row from 1972 to 1982.

Since 1988 the American League has dominated, winning 19 of 24 with one tie, including a 13 game unbeaten streak (12-0-1) from 1997 to 2009.

The National League ended their 13-year drought with a 3-1 victory in 2010 and won again in 2011 and 2012.

As of the 2013 All-Star Game, the cumulative run totals for all 84 games played was 696 – closely split between the leagues – with 344 runs for the American League and 352 for the National League.

The longest All-Star Game, in terms of innings lasted 15 innings, which has occurred twice: 1967 and 2008. The longest game, in terms of time was 2008, with a total time of 4 hours and 50 minutes.

This years All-Star Game will take place at Target Field on Tuesday, July 15th at 5 p.m. It will be the first All-Star Game held at Target Field, home of the Minnesota Twins.

Chicago Cubs Install Lights

On Feb. 23, 1988, the city of Chicago gives the MLB team the Cubs the right to install lights and play up to 18 night games a season.

The Chicago Cubs were the last team in Major League Baseball to get lights installed to play night games.

Wrigley Field was a holdout against night games, not installing lights until 1988 after baseball officials refused to allow Wrigley to host any post-season games without lights. Before then, all games at Wrigley were played during the day. Night games are still limited in number by agreement with the city council.

In 1942, then-owner P.K. Wrigley had planned to install lights, but instead, the lights and stands were scrapped for the war effort. Though Wrigley was the last Major League ballpark to get its lights, the first night game was scheduled for August 8, 1988; a 91-year-old Harry Grossman flipped a switch and Wrigley Field joined the modern era in a game against the Philadelphia Phillies, but the game was rained out after three and a half innings.

A snapshot of Wrigley Field in Chicago after the lights had been installed in 1988.

The first official night game at Wrigley was held the following day, August 9. The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League's first All-Star Game during the 1943 midseason, was played under temporary lights at Wrigley Field, between two teams composed of South Bend Blue Sox and Rockford Peaches players versus Kenosha Comets and Racine Belles players. It was also the first night game ever played in the historic ballpark (July 1, 1943).

Currently the Cubs are one of only a few teams in baseball that do not have a video board as part of their in-game festivities.

Along with Fenway Park, Wrigley is one of the last parks to maintain a hand-turned scoreboard. Unlike the home of the Red Sox, the scoreboard at Wrigley is mounted above the center field bleachers, rather than at ground level, making it harder to hit during play. No players have hit the current scoreboard, although several have come close. The scoreboard was installed in 1937, when Bill Veeck installed the new bleachers. The scoreboard has remained in place ever since, and has only seen minor modifications. The clock was added in 1941, a fifth row of scores was added to each side in 1961 and later a sixth. A set of light stands facing onto the scoreboard was added in 1988 with the introduction of night games. An electronic message board was also added below the scoreboard.

The scoreboard is still manually operated, with scores coming in through a computer (a ticker tape machine was used in the past); a number turner watches the score changes closely, and updates scores by manually replacing the numbers from within the scoreboard. The scoreboard is made out of sheet steel. The numbers that are placed into the inning windows are steel, painted forest green, and numbered with white numerals. The box for the game playing at Wrigley uses yellow numerals for the current inning. The clock, which sits at the top center of the scoreboard, has never lost time in its 71-year existence. Standing over the clock are three flagpoles, one for each division in the National League. There are 16 flags, one for each National League team, and their order on the flagpoles reflects the current standings. The entrance to the scoreboard is a trap door on the bottom. On the reverse of the scoreboard, visible from the CTA elevated trains, is a blue pennant, with the words "Chicago Cubs", in white outlined in red neon. The scoreboard was extensively rehabilitated for the 2010 season.

In 2010, the Cubs toyed with the idea of adding a video screen to the stadium, but the presence of the hand-turned scoreboard (which cannot be moved due to the park's landmark status, which also prohibits even simple facelifts such as adding two more games on either side 15 teams (seven games on each, plus the one interleague game), respectively, in the leagues; the 12-game, 24-team scoreboard reflects MLB from 1969 to 1976, so up to three games (one NL, one AL, and the inter-league) each day cannot be posted) has hampered efforts to do so. Most Cubs players support the addition of a Jumbotron, but it is unknown whether the team will proceed with plans to add one.

Those games may eventually be part of the auxiliary video board currently on the right field that may also be added in left field also.

The Cubs have not won the World Series in 104 years, the longest championship drought of any major North American professional sports team, and are often referred to as the "Lovable Losers" because of this distinction. They are also known as "The North Siders" because Wrigley Field, their home park since 1916, is located in Chicago's north side Lake View community at 1060 West Addison Street (as opposed to their cross-town rivals, the Chicago White Sox, who play on the city's South Side).

The club played its first games in 1870 as the Chicago White Stockings. This makes the Cubs, along with the Braves who were founded in 1871, one of the two oldest active teams in major North American sports. There is an argument as to whom is actually older because although the Cubs are a full season "older" they lost two seasons to the Great Chicago Fire, thus the Braves have played more seasons.

The Cubs have won two World Series titles in 1907 and 1908. They have won 16 National League pennants, their last being in 1945. They have won two National League Central Division Titles in 2003, 2007 and 2008.

Before the rezoning of teams in the National League the Cubs had won two East Division Titles in 1984 and 1989.

The Cubs have also earned one Wild Card berth in 1998, since the inception of the Wild Card.

NBA Trade Deadline; Sochi Olympics; Spring Training Podcast

Scratch Hit Sports creator Stephen Langsam talk about the NBA All-Star Weekend with former co-host of the Sporting Hangover, Ryan Hilton, and dive in head first to talk about what we did and did not like about the All-Star Weekend, and what we thought about the trades made at the trade deadline.

After that we talk about the Sochi Olympics and finish up with some spring training talk with the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants.

LINK: SCRATCH HIT SPORTS PODCAST