Star struck: Indians’ Alomar still awed by ’97 All-Star shot
CLEVELAND >> Sandy Alomar Jr. smiles and slowly shakes his head while listening to the rundown of names on the American League’s 1997 All-Star roster. A roll call of baseball royalty. There’s Cal Ripken and Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Thomas, Jim Thome, Mariano Rivera, Mark McGwire, and his brother, Robbie Alomar. Throw in some of the big boys from the NL like Tony Gwynn, Greg Maddux, Mike Piazza, Barry Bonds, Barry Larkin, Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling, and the galaxy of star power on the field in Cleveland 22 years ago is overwhelming.
In all, 19 current Hall of Famers, and others who will one day be immortalized in Cooperstown. Alomar chuckles.
“That’s why I was on the bench,” he said.
Once he got off it, the Indians’ former catcher — and present first-base coach — became the game’s brightest star, a hometown MVP hero. Online: DELCOTIMES.COM.
With the game tied 1-1 in the seventh inning, Alomar, who had overcome serious knee issues, connected for a tworun homer into the left-field bleachers off San Francisco’s Shawn Estes that sent the crowd of 44,916 inside Jacobs (now Progressive) Field into delirium and pushed the AL to a 3-1 win on a night when pitching dominated.
As he circled the bases, Alomar’s mind raced. He thought about his 96-year-old grandmother, Tonee Valazquez, who had passed away four days earlier in Puerto Rico. The Alomar brothers had small black ribbons pinned to their jerseys in her honor, and Sandy dedicated his performance to her.
Moments after being handed the MVP trophy by Commissioner Bud Selig, Alomar was joined by his 7-year-old son, Marcus, who ran onto the field to be with his big league dad. Surrounded by cameras and with fans chanting his name, Alomar posed for photos clutching the unexpected award and his beaming boy.
“You can’t prepare for that because you don’t know you’re going to be an MVP,” Alomar said. “I didn’t know if I was going to play for heaven’s sake. But it just happened in the moment, and he happened to be there and he just jumped in. It was a fantastic moment — the chance to have your son on the field pictured with the trophy in your home ballpark.”
Cleveland is hosting the All-Stars for the sixth time, but Alomar said the ’97 event was unique.
Alomar, who was in the midst of a 30-game hitting streak in 1997, appeared in his sixth and final All-Star Game in 1998.
The other five were great experiences. Nothing, though, compared to Cleveland.