{"id":838,"date":"2024-07-16T19:11:37","date_gmt":"2024-07-17T00:11:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/?p=838"},"modified":"2024-07-16T21:17:58","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T02:17:58","slug":"1962-all-star-game-at-wrigley-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/?p=838","title":{"rendered":"1962 All-Star Game at Wrigley Field"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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[This is from my first Substack column published today: randy baran.substack.com]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every kid in the 60s played baseball. We lived to go to the ballpark and watch our heroes play. Seeing an All-Star game in person was a dream.

My dad fulfilled that for me \u2013 and him. He was a teen in the 30s selling scorecards at Wrigley when Babe Ruth hit his \u2018called shot\u2019.

July 30, 1962 was a Monday so Dad was probably on vacation. He never missed a day of work but looked forward to his four weeks off every summer. This was a highlight to say the least. If it was modern times, he\u2019d have made history.

I don\u2019t want to get ahead of myself so here were the lineups for each team:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dig this \u2013 we got to see Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente play in the same outfield in the same game! Let alone Orlando Cepeda started at first. Ernie Banks (hero) came in later as he was a reserve.

We sat in the bleachers; a little to the right of center field. Wrigley hosted a beautiful day \u2013 clear sky, warm, comfortable; perfect baseball weather. Btw, I want to point out that both Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were there. Maris started in CF, but Mickey, if I remember, had a minor injury and didn\u2019t play.

But he did take batting practice. I trained my binoculars on the Mick as he took his cuts. On the third swing, he lined one toward center. I followed it \u2013 closer, closer.

\u201cHey Dad, it\u2019s coming right at us!\u201d

The ball bounced off a rail in front of us. My dad, strong and no slouch, scrambled for it. The ball was too fast and scuffed his forehead before a guy behind us got it. Dad was fine. Back then, nobody made a big deal out of anything. No lawyers, no cameras, no drama. He had a little mark, that was it. Two years later, we came home with a bat that Joe Torre cracked and propelled into the third base seats while trying to slug a fastball. Cameras were on me then, but yep, that\u2019s another story.

The AL won massively \u2013 9 to 4, breaking a long losing streak. Each team got 10 hits but the NL couldn\u2019t move runners. And here\u2019s a footnote: Hank Aaron, who was a reserve if you can believe that, also played.
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[This is from my first Substack column published today: randy baran.substack.com] Every kid in the 60s played baseball. We lived to go to the ballpark and watch our heroes play. Seeing an All-Star game in person was a dream. My dad fulfilled that for me \u2013 and him. He was a teen in the 30s … Continue reading 1962 All-Star Game at Wrigley Field<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=838"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":849,"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838\/revisions\/849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}