50 years ago, Tiger Stadium hosted one of the greatest All-Star Games ever
If Tiger Stadium ever earned the designation as the true “Field of Dreams” — instead of a movie set in Dyersville, Iowa— perhaps it happened on a hot and windy summer evening fifty years ago today, July 13, 1971.
Nineteen future Hall of Famers played in the 42nd MLB All-Star Game, witnessed by 53,599 fans at the home of the Tigers and an NBC television audience of 58 million.
Aided by 85-degree weather and a wind gusts to right field up to 31 mph, six of the eventualHall of Famers (Johnny Bench, Reggie Jackson, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Harmon Killebrew, and Roberto Clemente) hit homers to account for all of the scoring in the American League’s 6-4 victory over the National League.
The six-round trippers tied the All-Star Game record set 20 years earlier at the same ballpark, known then as Briggs Stadium.
“In 1971, baseball didn’t need a Home Run Derby to hype the All-Star Game because the players themselves were the stars of the show,” says former Free Press Tigers beat writer Jim Hawkins, who covered the game. “Looking back, I don’t think I appreciated it then as much as I do now. One could say it was the last great All-Star Game since you had all of those Hall of Famers in the game and six of them hit homers. But it was also unique by today’s standards since it was played in just 2 hours and 5 minutes.”
The game also featured the only starting Black pitchers to ever face each other in an AllStar Game as 21-year-old Oakland A’s pitching sensation Vida Blue was matched against the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Dock Ellis.
“During batting practice, you knew Tiger Stadium was going to take a beating” Bill Freehan, the former Tigers catcher who started for the AL that game,told the Free Press in 2001. “With the conditions and all those big hitters, the balls were just flying to the far reaches of the upper deck. You didn’t want to be a pitcher that night.”
National League starts strong
When PA announcer Joe Gentile introduced both teams as the players gathered on the base lines, the loudest cheers were for the Tiger representatives that included Freehan, starting first baseman Norm Cash, Mickey Lolich, Al Kaline, and Tigers manager Billy Martin, who served as the first base coach.
Mark Kaline, 63, fondly recalls sitting in box seats along the first base side with his brother Mike and mother, Louise, to watch his father who had been selected to his 17th All-Star Game.
“It was very special to see my dad right alongside all those other great players, many of whom also became Hall of Famers,” Mark Kaline said. “There was a lot of pent-up excitement in town for that game and I know my dad was taking it all in as much as a fan of the game as he did as a player. Even though I was Al Kaline’s son, I wanted to see Roberto Clemente play and I always admired Brooks Robinson because I was an infielder and he was my hero outside of my dad.”
The NL struck first in the second inning when Bench launched a ball into the bleachers, scoring Willie Stargell ahead of him. Then in the third, Aaron homered to right for his first extra-base hit in 20 All-Star appearances giving the NL a 3-0 cushion.
“After the game, one of the American League players told me that after Bench hit his two-run homer the players all felt like, ’Well here we go again,’” said Hawkins.
But then Oakland’s 24-year-old outfielder Reggie Jackson, a last-minute roster replacement for the injured Tony Olivia, took matters into his own hands when he pinch-hit for Blue with Luis Aparicio on first base.
“My ego was playing games with me when (manager) Earl Weaver had me pinch-hit so early, because it was like, ‘Couldn’t he have saved me for a big moment, he’s getting rid of me so early?’” Jackson said by phone in May.
‘That hit the transformer up there’
The lumber in Jackson’s hand turned out to be his own “wonder boy,” a 371⁄4 ounce Adirondack model RJ 288 bat chosen before the game when Joe Torre’s brother, Frank, an Adirondack representative, presented a dozen bats for Jackson’s consideration.
“I wanted a wider grain because the wider the grain, the older the tree, the harder the wood, so I picked this one and first used it in
batting practice,” said Jackson, who would use the same model for the rest of his career.
Jackson recalled stepping out of the batter’s box with an 0-2 count and hearing in his head Oakland teammate Sal Bando saying, ‘Whatever you do, don’t strike out and embarrass us.”
After taking a ball, NBC announcer Curt Gowdy made the call on the next pitch:
“There’s a long drive… that one is going way up. … It is off the roof! That hit the transformer up there! A tremendous smash.”
For the next several batters the crowd was buzzing, and Gowdy and color commentator Tony Kubek kept discussing Jackson’s homer.
Attorney John Morad was at the game with his father and still marvels at Jackson’s blast.
“I’ll never forget how hard and how far Jackson hit that home run. It just kept going up,” says Morad. “When you think of that All-Star Game and all those great players that is the one thing you always remember.”
Jackson recounts that Ellis hung him a slider and admitted that the wind and heat contributed to the ball’s trajectory.
“All I can say is that ball had places to go when it hit that transformer. That’s probably the hardest ball I ever hit in my career,” said Jackson, who revealed that Tiger Stadium was his favorite ballpark for hitting.
Al Kaline told the Free Press in 2001: “It was one of the most amazing home runs I have ever seen. It wasn’t even at its peak when it hit the transformer.
Alan Ingraham, 64, of Woodhaven was the bat boy for the NL and was perched on the dugout step next to the bat rack.
“I just remember hearing the very loud sound of the bat but I lost sight of the ball but then people were yelling and talking about where he hit,” said Ingraham, who added that the hardest part of the job that night was getting the players to sign countless baseballs. “I was pretty star-struck but was so busy running around that it is all such a blur.”
Wayne State physicists once estimated the homer would have traveled 650 feet had it not hit the rooftop transformer before bouncing back onto the field.
“When you think of that ’71 All-Star Game, the first thing that people talk about is Reggie’s homer,” Hawkins said. “Of course, we will never know where that ball would have landed. It was just an awesome blast.”
How the AL stopped the streak
Four batters later the AL took the lead 4-3 when Frank Robinson stroked a two-run homer.
In the top of the sixth,Kaline received a standing ovation from the crowd when he ran out to his familiar position in right field replacing Robinson.
“It was pretty exciting to see my dad run out to right field with that ovation,” said Mark Kaline, who in the bottom half of the inning saw No. 6 come to the plate to face Ferguson Jenkins.
“Like all Tiger fans, my dad was the guy I wanted up to bat. For me, it was never ‘Please just let him get a hit, it was, ‘Where’s he going to hit it?” Mark Kaline said. “My dad took the All-Star Game very seriously and he was so honored to be recognized as one of the best in the game. He really always wanted to make Detroit and the Tigers proud.”
Like he had done so many times before, Kaline came through when he hit a first-pitch serving from Jenkins into center field for a single and then scored what proved to be the winning run of the game on Killebrew’s two-run homer.
With a 6-3 lead going into the eighth inning, Weaver sent Lolich in to finish off the National League. Some thought Lolich should have started the game because the left-hander was 14-6 with a 2.96 ERA at the All-Star break and because the game was in Detroit.
“I had made the All-Star game in ’69 but (Tigers manager) Mayo Smith (the AL manager that year) told me that Denny McLain was starting and that I wouldn’t play because he wanted me to pitch the opener in the second half of the season so that was disappointing,” said Lolich. “Then when Earl Weaver started Vida Blue for the ’71 All-Star Game I thought, ‘Well here we go again.’”
Lolich ended up earning the save in the 6-4 AL victory after giving up one hit, a solo homer by Pittsburgh’s Robert Clemente that landed in the upper deck bleachers in right-center field.
“I just threw him curveballs because Clemente was a fastball hitter and I hung him a curveball on a 3-1 count,” Lolich said. “I knew when he hit it that it was going to be a home run because I knew that sound. He was such a great hitter . ... In the end, I was excited to pitch the last two innings and earn the save. I think the Detroit fans appreciated that.”