Most memorable All-Star Games have a common element: momentous home runs. Starting with the first, fittingly hit by Babe Ruth at the inaugural midseason game between the two leagues in 1933, there has been a steady diet of homers in the intervening 60 years.
There was the game-winning shot by Ted Williams in the 1941 All-Star Game, with two out and two on and the American League down one in the ninth. There was Johnny Callison's three-run home run to cap a four-run National League rally in the ninth inning of the 1964 game.
There were the extra-inning home runs by Red Schoendienst in 1950, Stan Musial in 1955, Tony Perez in 1967.
And who can forget Reggie Jackson's shot off the rooftop transformer in 1971, or Fred Lynn's grand slam in 1983 or Bo Jackson's 450-footer to lead off the 1989 game?
And then there was the 1958 All-Star Game in Baltimore, won by the American League, 4-3.
In a game that included 11 future Hall of Famers and four of the top home run hitters in baseball history -- all-time leader Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Williams -- not a single player went deep. There wasn't even an extra-base hit.
But the game did produce a number of unlikely heroes: New York Yankees shortstop Gil McDougald, whose run-scoring single in the sixth broke a 3-3 tie; Kansas City Athletics outfielder Bob Cerv, who made a couple of running catches; and, to the delight of many in the crowd of 48,829, Orioles pitcher Billy O'Dell, who preserved a one-run lead by retiring all nine National Leaguers he faced in relief.
"From what I remember, it was a pretty dull game," said former Orioles catcher Gus Triandos, who started for the American League and played the first six innings.
It didn't start out that way. Shortly after Vice President Richard Nixon threw out the first ball, the National League scuffed up American League starter Bob Turley of the Yankees for three runs and three hits in the first 1 2/3 innings. Turley compounded his problems with two walks, a wild pitch and a hit batsman.
It was a disappointing homecoming for Turley, a former Oriole who had been traded to the hated Yankees in a deal that brought Triandos, his old Army buddy, to Baltimore. Turley and his wife still lived in Lutherville at the time of the 1958 All-Star Game.
"I didn't do too well," recalled Turley, who won the major leagues' Cy Young Award -- in those days, only one was given -- that season. "It was just one of those games when you don't have any of your pitches going. It was one of those weird things."
