Jerry Coleman iintroduces Ray Kroc as “possibly one of the finest owners to come forth in the game of baseball.” Kroc steps up to the podium and says, “Jerry, you know how to stay on the team.”

Tom Voss

I would place major league baseball’s All-Star game about fifth or sixth on a ranked list of American sports classics, following the World Series, the football bowl games (including the pseudo-classic, overhyped Super Bowl), the heavyweight championship boxing match, the Kentucky Derby, the National and American league baseball playoff games, and possibly the Indianapolis 500. Basketball and hockey fans will want to add the NBA playoffs and the Stanley Cup games, and the golf crowd would surely write in the Master’s Tournament if a referendum on the issue were held; but the All-Star game would appear on almost everyone’s list of the top ten. Even this realization did not prepare me for the frenetic and awesome series of events which occurred here last week when the game touched down in San Diego like a tornado, spiraling outward across the nation from the vortex of the stadium in Mission Valley.

Unlike any of the other contests mentioned above, the All-Star game is strictly an exhibition — a display of baseball’s best and brightest, and the surest analogy is not to another sporting event, but to another American ritual, the Academy Awards. I’m surprised someone has not yet proposed a special event to announce the starters in typical Academy Award fashion: “The nominees for best performance by a first baseman in the American League are . . . Certainly the festivities surrounding the game and threatening to overwhelm it like a tidal wave hitting a sand castle had an intensely ceremonious and serious air about them, resembling something like a cross between an inaugural ball and a Legionnaires’ convention.

My All-Star vigil begins on Monday, July 10 at about eleven a.m. when I arrive at the Sheraton Harbor Island Hotel to pick up what I think will be just a press pass to gain admittance to the game itself. As I walk up to the hotel entrance, I notice Padre outfielder Dave Winfield standing next to a dazzling red and beige Rolls Royce Silver Wraith II, talking to a group of handsome young men, dressed so fashionably that they could be posing for a Gentlemen’s Quarterly ad. “There’ll be a lot of San Diego kids there,’’ he is telling them. “They’ll just want to meet you guys and get your autographs.” I surmise Winfield is talking about the party he is hosting at the Master Hosts Inn in Hotel Circle for San Diego youngsters, and I realize that the substantial traffic jam I encountered on my way here was all those kids going to Dave’s party. “Now if we’ve got all the cars here, let’s leave,’’ he says, and most of the men (there were six in all) get into the Rolls Royce while a few head for another car elsewhere in the parking lot. Winfield slides behind the steering wheel, closes the door, and glides the Silver Wraith out of the hotel driveway, headed for a mob of more than 10,000 young fans.

I go up to the “Media Credentials Suite” on the third floor where I give my name to a very cheerful fellow who checks it off a very long, multipage list and says, “Welcome . . . nice to have you here.” He hands me an envelope, a folder, a large yellow plastic shopping bag with the Padre All-Star logo on it, and a small plastic jewelry box. “That’s your All-Star press pin,” he says, “and the bag contains various and sundry items.” I can’t imagine what's in it but I am soon to learn that “various and sundry” is not at all redundant. When I go through the bag later at home, I find it contains, among other things too numerous to mention, a cigarette lighter in the shape of an aerosol can with the major league team logos on it, a pair of pantyhose, two coin banks — one in the shape of a tuna fish can, the other a Campbell’s Soup can with vegetable seeds inside it — a copy of San Diego Magazine, a miniature baseball bat, two key chains — one attached to a tiny Budweiser bottle with a flashlight on the end of it, the other to a miniature baseball — a red and white batting glove, a spray can of WD-40, several books and pamphlets, a couple of packs of gum, a miniature bottle of English Leather cologne, a blue and white Frisbee with the words “Shamu” and ‘‘Sea World” emblazoned on it, an All-Star T-shirt and plastic Padre jacket, and more and more. Thanking the distributor of this overstuffed bag, I take the elevator downstairs to put the bundle in my car trunk and examine the contents of the envelope and folder.

In the former I find the press pass (one of six different varieties, an information sheet explains), and a half dozen or so invitations and announcements. It begins to appear that there’s more to this All-Star game than just nine innings.

Back in the hotel lobby, there are about a dozen kids milling about, some holding baseballs, some autograph books or slips of paper. One twelve-year-old wearing a Padre jacket stealthily eyes the elevator and makes a dash for it each time a ballplayer — or anyone connected with baseball — emerges; he seems to know almost everyone on sight. He removes from his pocket a heavily autographed baseball and admires his signatures. “Looks like you’ve got a few autographs,” I say to him. “I have all the American Leaguers except Reggie Jackson, Carl Yastrzemski, and Thurman Munson,” he says, beaming. “That’s ’cause they’re not here. National Leaguers are harder to get.” He removes another ball from the other pocket, this one not as densely covered with signatures. I look at it and can make out Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Vida Blue, and maybe five or six other barely legible scrawls. A friend joins the twelve-year-old. “I just got Rod Carew,” he says. “God, we’ve got this place all to ourselves. Everybody’s over at the Winfield party.”

The Padres have scheduled a workout for the major league All-Star teams for this afternoon, and when I arrive at San Diego Stadium at about 3:15 the American League workout is just getting under way. The stadium looks about half filled (it was later estimated that 30,000 people attended the free event) but the crowd is very loud and kinetic. Around homeplate there are thousands of kids, hundreds of them pressing to get close to the field, screaming at the ballplayers for autographs. There are also a few kids on the field, but mostly — in the foul ternary area around the infield — the field is dense with reporters, photographers, television cameras, microphones, and tape recorders. I spot Howard Cosell, wearing a bright yellow ABC blazer and electric blue pants (both clearly designed for color TV), sitting in a folding chair along the first-base line. He smokes a cigarette and waits for the ballplayers to come to him. This difference between Cosell and all the other reporters is immediately apparent. Everyone else scrambles around trying to get interviews; Cosell sits on his established turf and waits for Vida Blue, Steve Garvey, Pete Rose, and Rod Carew to join him — which, in time, they all do.

The lovely, unmistakable sound of wood making solid contact with a baseball draws my attention to the batting cage, where Fred Lynn, the Boston Red Sox center fielder, is swatting a few off Brooks Robinson, the great former third baseman for the Baltimore Orioles whose baseball career ended last year. Robinson is here as an honorary captain for the American League team. I walk over to the cage as Rod Carew, baseball's leading batter, replaces Lynn in the batter’s box and bunts the first three pitches thrown at him. Carew is followed by Jim Rice, the hefty Red Sox slugger, who digs, a comfortable little recess in the batter's box with his snazzy red patent leather spikes. There is a loud roar from the crowd as John McNamara, the former Padre manager, replaces Brooks Robinson as the batting practice pitcher. But there is an even louder roar as the KGB chicken appears, emerging from somewhere in left field.

The American Leaguers follow one another rapidly in the cage, each taking four or five swings, then waiting on the sidelines for a while, then going back for more. Over the loudspeaker, the public address announcer informs the reporters that Vida Blue (the National League's starting pitcher) is now available for interviews in the press room. Some National Leaguers are beginning to come on the field; others sit in their dugout. Players are being interviewed all over the place. “Boston won’t collapse,” Carleton Fisk tells a man holding an NBC microphone. “We’re getting good hitting, good fielding, good pitching . . . everybody’s doing their job.” Dave Winfield speaks into the hand-held microphone of Jerry Coleman, the Padre announcer. The kids nearby are screaming, “Dave! Dave! Dave!” in the background as Winfield explains to Coleman that he just wants to prove to San Diego fans that he belongs with the elite of the major leagues. (I hear him say this to three other reporters, each time stressing the word “elite.”) Dave Concepcion, the Cincinnati Reds’ shortstop, discusses the virtues of discipline with a Japanese reporter who translates his remarks into Japanese immediately after he makes them. Concepcion moves to another reporter who interviews him in Spanish. Steve Garvey is now seated in a chair catty-cornered to the one occupied by Howard Cosell. He has a large bandage covering his chin.

“Well, Howard,” says Garvey, “I got this trying to find out if you can catch a baseball with your chin, and I guess you can’t.”

“How serious is it?” Cosell asks.

“Twenty-two stitches.”

“Do you think you should be playing baseball with twenty-two stitches in your chin?”

“Well, I just don’t like to let the fans down, all those people that voted for me. I played in 1974 with the mumps and I’m just not going to let a mere twenty-two stitches stop me now.”

A tremendous roar from the crowd makes me look up to notice a ball, which began its flight at the end of Greg Luzinski’s bat, complete its arc fifteen rows into the second deck in left field. It is one of the longest balls I have ever seen hit at San Diego Stadium. Vida Blue, having completed his “general press interview,” has now settled into the seat across from Cosell. “Are you guys ready?” Howard snaps at his cameraman. “Vida’s in a hurry and so am I.” Blue gets a lot of attention from reporters and fans after he finishes the Cosell interview. He is surrounded by autograph seekers, people thrusting balls, programs, even press passes at him (many reporters are as eager for signatures as are the kids). One man keeps producing additional objects for him to sign. “Hey, man,” Vida says, “I’d love to stand here and chat with you all afternoon, but I’ve got to get out there and shag some fly balls for the fans.” The man persists, opening his program to the page with Blue’s photo on it. “Just one more?” Blue looks exasperated but signs, then turns to jog out to right field where he cavorts for a while with the chicken.

Over by the American League dugout, Billy Martin, the beleaguered New York Yankee manager and manager of the American League All-Stars, is standing with his left arm draped across the shoulders of Padre announcer Jerry Coleman. I remember they were half the New York Yankee’s infield in the 1950s when I was growing up in Brooklyn and thrived on what we used to call “Yankee hatred.” The memory evokes another world, a vague and distant time.

All-Star day itself (July 11) gets under way for me when I arrive at the Sheraton Harbor Island at about 11:45 to attend the “Baseball Commissioner’s Luncheon.” Once again, the red and beige Rolls Royce Silver Wraith II is parked in front of the lobby. This car is becoming something of a symbol of the event for me. In the hotel lobby, a man of about twenty, wearing heavy black horn-rimmed glasses and a black and orange baseball warm-up jacket with various team patches on the sleeves, says in a whispered tone combining wonder, awe, solicitude, and absolute reverence, “The great Joe DiMaggio!” Sure enough, DiMaggio is standing there, looking very world-weary, his eyes darting about at the elevator floor indicators. Seeing him gives me pause, as I think for a moment about the incredible contours of this man’s life, occupying the deep center of the American dream for so long: star New York Yankee center fielder in their most glorious days, husband of Marilyn Monroe at the apex of her stardom, baseball legend and Hall-of-Famer, and now — my heart sinks, my whole body heaves a sigh — a salesman for Mr. Coffee coffeemakers. DiMaggio signs an autograph for the man in the baseball jacket while rushing to an open elevator door.

Over at the Grand Ballroom, which is filled to near capacity, seats are hard to find, but I locate one at a table near the entrance, and after introductions are made I learn that I am sitting with a group of Japanese reporters, a reporter from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, and a reporter from a suburban Los Angeles paper. The All-Stars and their wives, various baseball executives and luminaries file into their places on a three-tiered dais as long as half a football field. It faces the dozens of round tables crowded together in the long, rectangular room.

During dinner we make small talk until attention shifts to the podium when Jerry Coleman introduces himself as the master of ceremonies. Coleman jokingly recalls his single experience in an All-Star game (it was twenty-eight years ago, on July 11, 1950) when he struck out twice and booted a ground ball. He introduces Ray Kroc as “possibly one of the finest owners to come forth in the game of baseball.” Kroc steps up to the podium and says, “Jerry, you know how to stay on the team.” Kroc seems genuinely delighted to be hosting the All-Star game in San Diego. He is throwing the biggest party of his life and is clearly enjoying every minute of it. “The only trouble with it,” he says, “is that I’m seventy-six and can’t wait for the All-Star game to come around again in another twenty-five years. I’m going to suggest to the owners that we select the sites by drawing lots. That way I might be able to have all you wonderful people back in three or four years. Some people might think that isn’t fair, but when you’re my age you don’t worry about being fair any more.” He gets a big round of applause and Coleman steps back to the podium to introduce some of the other dignitaries and celebrities on the dais, including baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, who, in turn, introduces Happy Chandler, one of the grand old men of the game and its former commissioner, who is to receive an award for “distinguished service to professional baseball” and in honor of his eightieth birthday.

Chandler, a veteran of more than half a century of banquet speeches, steps up to the microphone and says, “I feel a bit like the mosquito that flew over the fence into the nudist camp. I hardly know where to start.” His speech is punctuated with quips and anecdotes, but toward the end he grows serious, almost solemn. Directly to the All-Stars seated in front of him he says, “This is your time and this is the moment. Give it all you’ve got because you’ve got millions of people who pray for you and cry with you and you don’t want to let them down.” He receives a standing ovation. Kuhn leads the throng singing “Happy Birthday” to Chandler, and the festivities are concluded as Rod Carew receives the “Gillette Award” as the highest vote-getter on the All-Star team.

As I leave the banquet hall and the hotel I see, in my rear view mirror, Dave Winfield getting into the red and beige Rolls Royce in the space directly behind and across from mine. I let him go first.

I arrive at the stadium at 3:30 and the parking lot is already well over half filled. Coleman has been telling listeners to the Padre games all the previous week to arrive at three p.m. in order to avoid a massive traffic tie-up during rush hours. A great many have. Walking toward the entrance, I spot a bearded fellow leaning against the outer stadium wall wearing a fedora with two All-Star tickets tucked into the band. He is holding a crayoned sign which says, “All-Star Tickets.” “How much do you want for them?” I ask. “Fifty apiece,” he says. “They’re on the first base side ... field level ... good seats.”

From the perspective of the playing field, the crowd seems festive, but clearly more restrained than those who were here yesterday. The National League is taking batting practice, but the first thing I notice are several homemade signs hanging down near the ABC Sports sign in right field. One of them says: I GOT A TICKET. HI, DAD! Shenandoah, Iowa

Along the third-base line, a short, well-tanned, middle-aged man in a light blue sports jacket and light blue checkered slacks is standing alone, staring wistfully out onto the playing field. It’s Pee Wee Reese. Today the name Pee Wee Reese may not strike terror into the hearts of men, but when you grow up in the shadow of Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field as I did, and when all you want out of life at age twelve is to become a shortstop for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and when the current occupant of that position is a man named Reese, such a name lodges itself into the deeper recesses of the psyche, and the mere mention of it can evoke more memories than the taste of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. An actual confrontation with the individual bearing the name is apt to be traumatic, for such idols are fragile and easily shattered. I approach Reese with a dry mouth and a racing heartbeat, afraid he might do something like blow his nose. Instead, somebody yells, “Pee Wee,” and he turns toward the voice and says, “Charlie, how are you?” and the two walk toward the American League dugout and out of sight.

Behind the batting cage a man in a white shirt, wearing a Padre All-Star hat and chomping on an unlit cigar, is holding what appears to be a black ray-gun of the sort that is seen in science fiction films. He is pointing this pistol-shaped device, which is attached by a wire to a battery pack on his belt, at the pitcher’s mound, and small electronic numbers appear in red above the gun’s handle. I ask about it. It turns out the man’s name is John K. Paulson and he is the manufacturer of the device, which is called a “Jug’s Speedgun.” ABC uses it to clock pitchers all around the major leagues on Monday Night Baseball, but during special events like the All-Star game and the World Series, they invite Mr. Paulson to come down from Oregon and use it himself. Most major league pitchers, he tells me, can throw the ball at ninety miles per hour or more. He’s clocked Vida Blue at ninety-seven miles per hour. “But not all of ’em throw it that fast,” he says. “You take that Randy Jones fella you got here. We clocked him at a steady eighty in a game against the Dodgers last month. Yeager, the Dodger catcher, threw somebody out at second faster than that. We clocked him at eighty-eight.” Paulson also tells me that he manufactures a baseball pitching machine that can throw curveballs. He invented this machine in 1971 when he was coaching Little League and wanted to give the kids practice hitting curves. “My arm got tired,” he says, “so I made this machine. We’ve just assembled our 10,000th one this month.” I thank Paulson for the information as a new banner unfurls in right field: ABC, THIS IS DAVE WINFIELD TERRITORY.

It is 4:35 and the crowd on the field is thinning out. The ballplayers seem to be getting tired of being hounded by people. “Jack,” a reporter calls, approaching Jack Clark, the Giant’s power hitter. “Not now, man,” Clark says, brushing the reporter aside. Photographers are trying to get close-up shots of Vida Blue and James Palmer, the starting pitchers. They are posing in the on-deck area near the American League dugout. “Closer together,” a photographer implores. “Don’t want to get too close,” says Blue. “We don’t love each other. What will the fans think?”

From the press box on the third deck along the right-field line, the event has a totally different feel. The festivities begin at 5:15 when the U.S. Navy Drum and Bugle Corps marches onto the field accompanied by a display of flags. During their performance, ex-President Ford arrives and is seated near Bowie Kuhn. Ford’s arrival is announced over the public address system and he is cheered heartily as he turns and waves to the crowd. As the Drum and Bugle Corps forms a semicircle of flags around the infield, I go into a room behind the press box, where a color TV is set up, to watch Howard Cosell interpret these events for a national audience. There is a general cynicism among the reporters concerning Cosell. Some of it, of course, is envy. “We’ll quite frankly have to face the issue of the missing American League All-Stars head on,” Cosell begins. A reporter, leaning against the wall sipping a beer grumbles at the tube. “Quite frankly, you ought to admit that you don’t know what in hell you’re talking about.” Cosell is making an issue of (he fact that Jackson, Yastrzemski, and Munson did not show up for the game. He speaks to Jackson over the phone and Jackson tells him that he has the flu and is just not up to playing. It has nothing to do with his celebrated feud with Billy Martin.' “In point of fact,” Cosell concludes dramatically, “Reggie Jackson’s temperature is approaching one hundred and two degrees." Estimates of Jackson's temperature in the press room range from 98.6 (the cynics) to 104 (the true believers).

Some young men in cleanly pressed yellow T-shirts are passing out additional media information in the press box. Included in this latest packet is a description of the post-game services, which will include a play-by-play description of the game, a box score, miscellaneous notes, records, and quotes from both teams. A reporter next to me wonders aloud why we need to be here at all.

The American League team is being introduced, and as each player’s name is announced, he tips his hat, not to the 51,549 people present (the largest crowd ever to see a baseball game in San Diego Stadium), but to the television camera, which is following the introductions down the third-base line. A loud, steady boo greets the mention of Billy Martin’s name. When the National League All-Stars are introduced, there is a tremendous, unrelenting roar even before Dave Winfield’s name is mentioned, and when it is, the crowd goes absolutely wild. The Dodgers and the Reds dominate the National’s starting line-up, and the crowd ritualistically cheers the Reds and boos the Dodgers, except for Steve Garvey, the Dodger first baseman, who wins the fans’ approval.

The Captain and Tennille are on hand to sing the National Anthem, and I am surprised when the public address announcer says that Tennille will sing “O, Canada," followed by "The Star Spangled Banner." Someone must have noticed that the Montreal Expos and the Toronto Blue Jays are not in the U.S.A. Ray Kroc walks to the mound and throws the ceremonial first pitch on one hop to Padre coach Whitey Wietelmann, and at 6:09 p.m. Vida Blue throws the actual first pitch (a strike) to Rod Carew.

Carew begins the game with some excitement — a line drive that splits the alley in left field for a triple, and the American League jumps on Vida Blue for two runs in the first and one in the third; for a moment it looks as if the National League's domination of the game (they have won fifteen of the last sixteen All-Star contests) might end, but they come back with three in the bottom of the third, and after that the game becomes a ho-hum affair until the bottom of the eighth when the Nationals get four more.

In the bottom of the second, I go back of the press box again to watch Cosell’s taped interview with Steve Garvey. This is the same interview videotaped on the field the day before. Seeing it now, in a small square box in the upper right-hand corner of the TV screen as the larger picture shows Garvey taking his strokes at the plate, gives me a kind of eerie, electronic deja vu. “Not going to let a mere twenty-two stitches," Garvey is saying, “...don’t like to let the fans down ... played with mumps in 1974.” I am beginning to think of this event as a national morality play — Steve Garvey the Good, who plays with twenty-two stitches in his chin, versus Reggie Jackson the Bad, who lets a little flu bug (a questionable flu bug) keep him in New York. I walk back to my seat and see someone in a right-field seat stand up, holding a sign which says, WELCOME, USA, FROM AMERICA S FINEST CITY.

The organist is playing a commercial jingle ("Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet"), and I suddenly think of the ball game going on down on the field as a very distant and frail thing, getting pummeled and beaten and hyped and puffed up beyond its capacity to bear it. I’m reminded of a phrase that Dave Campbell, the Padre announcer, is fond of — "good old country hardball" — and wonder whatever happened to it.

I watch the rest of the game in a semitrance until I am jolted into attentiveness by Steve Garvey’s triple in the bottom of the eighth and his scoring on a wild pitch by Rich Gossage. Garvey seems destined, like a character in a Greek drama, to play out his particular role. He is selected “Player of the Game" and in the press elevator on the way out someone says, “How come they didn’t distribute ballots for the player-of-the-game award? Who makes the selection?" “Cosell probably does it all by himself," comes the answer, from a cynical, muffled voice in the back of the crowded elevator.