LITTLE ROCK — Suddenly there seems to be an intense baseball debate about whether Stephen Strasburg should appear in the July 13 major league All-Star Game - perhaps even as the National League’s starting pitcher.
Traditionalists want talented rookies paying dues and biding their time. The opposing view is that Strasburg has qualified for star status by striking out 48 batters in five big-league starts for the Washington Nationals, and the All-Star Game desperately needs his gate appeal.
Strasburg has pitched only 31 2 /3 innings since he made his debut with the Nationals on June 8.
Each All-Star squad carries 13 pitchers. Eight are selected by the players, and the managers choose the rest. Position players, of course, are sorted out from fans’ votes.
The Strasburg arguments remind me of Joe DiMaggio’s nightmarish All-Star Game during his rookie season of 1936, played at Boston’s Braves Field. DiMaggio was not yet established as the NewYork Yankees’ center fielder, but the fans voted him in as a starting outfielder and he wound up playing right field.
Here’s the way his day went, as described by Roger Kahn in Joe & Marilyn, a 1986 book tracking the lives and careers of DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe.
DiMaggio hit into a double play in the first inning. “In the second inning with one runner on base,” Kahn wrote, “Gabby Hartnett smacked a hard line drive to right field. DiMaggio raced in, trying to catch the ball at his shoe tops. He missed. The ball skipped between his legs. Triple.
“DiMaggio popped out with a man on base in the fourth inning. In the fifth, Billy Herman sliced a single to right and DiMaggio scooped the ball and dropped it. Herman went to second on the error. Joe Medwick scored Herman with a single. DiMaggio ... had already stranded two runners and misplayed two balls in the outfield.”
In the sixth inning, DiMaggio grounded out with a man on first. In the seventh inning, he came up with the bases loaded and two out, and lined out to shortstop Leo Durocher.
DiMaggio’s dismal day ended when he popped out to first with the tying run on base. The American Leaguers lost 4-3.
“Inside the clubhouse [afterward],” Kahn wrote, “reporters and photographers left him alone. Joe Cronin of the [Boston] Red Sox approached him and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t take it too hard, kid,’ Cronin said. ‘I wish I had you on my team. Someday you’ll be the greatest star of them all.’
“DiMaggio blinked back tears.
...He was able to smile, but he could not speak.”
No problems persisted from the traumatic afternoon. DiMaggio batted .323 his rookie year, with 132 runs, 208 hits, 44 doubles, 15 triples, 29 home runs and 125 RBI. He is best remembered for hitting safely in 56 consecutive games in 1941. During 13 seasons with the Yankees, he played for 10 pennant winners.
In DiMaggio’s time, the star players handled most of the action in All-Star games. Nowadays, the starters bat once or twice before the benches start clearing.
No pitchers go past three innings, and one or two innings seem to be the norm, even for the starting pitchers.
Strasburg reportedly is a $15.1 million rookie, while DiMaggio did very well by the finances of the 1930s. He was an $8,500 rookie in 1936: ordinary rookies had to settle for $6,000 or a little less. As Kahn noted, that was the era of the 30-cent blue plate special.
Sports, Pages 18 on 06/29/2010