Hey now you’re an All Star get your game on, go play. Hey now you’re a Rock Star get the show on, get paid. -Smashmouth
Public Service Announcement: OK, here we go! It’s here. The All Star Game is here. Hooray! Hooray All Star Game! I love it. Always have. Always will.
- I love it when the players line up and down the basepaths.
- I loved it when Bo Knows Baseball and Suede Boggs went back to back.
- I loved it when Pedro mixed a blazing fastball, darting curve and tantalizing change. Watch me paste this pathetic palooka with a powerful paralyzing poifect, pachydermus, percussion pitch. Pasted four straight. Four straight strikeouts to start out the 1999 All Star Game.
- I loved it when Chan Ho Park grooved one in to Cal. Groove is in the heart.
- Heck, I even loved it last night when the story of all stories, the Natural of all Naturals, Josh Hamilton kept hitting bomb after bomb, country mile after country mile into the New York night.
I love all of it. But I loved nothing more than 1983.
Teddy Ballgame may have said, “They invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays,” but in 1983 the game belonged to Freddy Lynn. Growing up in Boston when I did, if you played baseball, you had to fight for number nineteen. Like fighting for number twenty-three in basketball in more recent days. In 1975, Lynn burst upon the scene. In 1975, Lynn became the only man to win both the Rookie of the Year award and MVP in the same year. Gold Glove to boot. Holy Cow!
Throughout the years he posted amazing numbers. Astounding numbers. Resounding numbers. Toronto manager Roy Hartsfield: “Fred Lynn is the most complete player in our league.” He roamed center like DiMaggio. He swung like the Splendid Splinter. He had it all. We had a ball. In 1981, the ball was over. Many a heart is aching, if you could read them all. Many the hopes they have vanished. After the ball.
My hopes vanished. Lynn filed for free agency. Rather than lose him for nothing, the Sox traded him to the Angels. One of the saddest days in my life. The king is gone but he’s not forgotten. Is this the story of Johnny Rotten? No not forgotten. Not even Johnny Rotten. Freddy Lynn came storming back into my life back in 1983. Storming back into the All Star game back in 1983.
The 50th anniversary of the Midsummer Classic. Comiskey Park. Not one grand slam was hit in the first half-century of All-Star Game play. That all changed. It all changed with one swing of the bat. It all changed with the bases loaded in the third. It all changed with a Lynn rip into the stands for his fourth All-Star Game home run. It all changed with a Lynn rip into the stands for the first Grand Slam in All Star Game history. The only Grand slam in All Star Game history. Freddy Lynn took Atlee Hammaker yard and I couldn’t have been happier. Red Sox nation couldn’t have been happier. After all those years, he was still our favorite son.
Freddy Lynn knocked in Manny Trillo. Freddy Lynn knocked in Rod Carew. Freddy Lynn knocked in Robin Yount. Lynn went on to be named the game’s MVP. Lynn went on to become a Baltimore Oriole. Lynn went on to become a Detroit Tiger. A San Diego Padre. Have bat will travel. But, I will always remember him as a Red Sox. And even though it happened in a California uniform, I will always remember that moment.
Hardball Times Baseball Reference Baseball Library
Public Acknowledgements: Bugs Bunny, Phil Rizzuto, Charles K. Harris and Neil Young
Peace out homies. Six two and Even!
Need More? Boston Red Sox, Fred Lynn, MLB
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