Baseball game summaries from the New York Times, 1950
NATIONAL LEAGUE BEATS AMERICAN ON
SCHOENDIENST'S HOMER IN 14TH
LONG HITS DECIDE
ALL-STAR GAME, 4-3
Kiner's Homer in Ninth ties
Score and Nationals Win in
14th Before 46,127 Fans
KEY TRIPLE BY SLAUGHTER
Blackwell Victor, but Jansen
Holds Foe to One Safety for
Five Innings, Fans Six
By John Drebinger
Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
CHICAGO, July 11--Baseball's
mid-summer classic, the All-Star
game, conceived in 1933, began its
second turn of the wheel today and
after seventeen long years it finally
looks as if something new is
about to be added.
For on this steaming afternoon
in the presence of 46,127 onlookers,
the National League, so often the
underdog in this annual fixture,
turned on its arch tormentor to
topple the American League in
fourteen blistering innings with a
pair of electrifying home runs.
Ralph Kiner, the Pirates' renowned
slugger, hit the first with
the bases empty in the top half of
the ninth to deadlock the battle
at 3-all. In the fourteenth, the
Cardinals' Al (Red) Schoendienst
exploded the other to give the
senior circuit the battle, 4 to 3.
Ironically, two hurlers from the
American League's leading Tigers
were the victims. Art Houtteman
yielded the homer by Kiner. Ted
Gray was the one whom Schoendienst
felled to become the losing
pitcher.
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Thus, as the classic returned to
Comiskey Park, scene of the first
encounter, the National Leaguers,
beaten in twelve of the first sixteen
games, gained their fifth
triumph and with it the hope that
as the spectacle swings around its
orbit of major league parks a second
time their luck will be better.
Most jubilant of all National
Leaguers was old Burt Shotton
who as director of the senior loop's
forces gained some measure of
revenge on the American League
skipper, Casey Stengel, whose
Yankees had topped Shotton's Dodgers
in last October's World Series.
It was a nerve tingling exhibition
the rival camps put on in this
longest of All-Star games. In
fact it was the first ever to go
into extra innings.
In the fifth the American Leaguers
went ahead, 3-2, on a pair of
tallies wrenched from the Dodgers'
Don Newcombe. After those two
runs, Shotton dug into the reserve
trough of his National League
pitching talent for nine scoreless
innings.
Most brillant of all the hurling
was that which Larry Jansen,
tall right-hander of the sixth<>place
Giants, contributed to the
National's hard earned triumph.
He wheeled in with five scoreless
innings, from the seventh to the
eleventh, inclusive, in which he
allowed one hit and fanned six.
Fain Singles in Fourteenth
Then came Ewell Blackwell, the
Reds' beanpole righthander, to put
on the crusher in the closing three
innings during which he allowed
only one hit. That was a single
by Ferris Fain with one out in the
fourteenth. A moment later Joe
DiMaggio ended it by splashing
into a double play and that returned
Blackwell the winner.
Stengel, too, got some fine hurling
after his Vic Raschi had yielded
two runs in the second, but
when he called on Gray, only lefty
to appear in the encounter, to start
the thirteenth, he paved the way
to his undoing. For in the fourtenth (sic)
Schoendienst, a switch hitter,
stepped to the right side of
the plate and while Red normally
does his heaviest hitting from the
left side, this game-winning shot
soared high in the upper left-deck.
Gray never finished the round,
for when another single, a strike<>out
and a passed ball followed,
Stengel called on one of the heroes
of bygone All-Star games, Bob
Feller, to prevent any further
damage.
A sizzling sun beat down on the
arena through fleecy white clouds
as the starting hurlers, the Yanks'
Raschi and the Phils' Robin Roberts,
got the struggle under way
and the sweltering crowd did not
have to wait long for its first
thrill.
Williams Makes Fine Catch
The National League's second
batter, Kiner, slammed into one of
Raschi's swift pitches and sent the
ball riding toward the scoreboard
in left center for what looked like
an extra base hit. But Ted Williams,
who some folks think specialize
exclusively in getting his
bat on a ball, got his glove on this
one for a spectacular running
catch that sent him careening off
the wall.
For a moment it looked as if the
Boston kid had hurt himself as his
left elbow crashed into the barrier,
but after some vigorous rubbing
Ted signaled he was still
sound in wind and limb.
Only three National Leaguers
faced Raschi in that opening round
and the Americans also were held
scoreless in the lower half although
the Yanks' Phil Rizzuto,
playing in his first All-Star game
after a long and patient wait, signalized
the event by slapping Roberts'
first pitch into left field for
a single.
However, in the second the Nationals
moved in front to score
two runs in almost less time than
it takes to say Jack Robinson,
which was exactly the fellow's
name who started it.
The Dodgers' brilliant Negro
second sacker, playing his third
successive All-Star encounter,
opened with a single to right and
a moment later was streaking over
the plate as Enos Slaughter, the
Cards' redoubtable veteran, larruped
a triple into left center. Next
came a long fly to right by the
Cubs' Hank Sauer which produced
an extra heavy cheer from the
Chicago fans in addition to the
second tally that Slaughter fetched
home from third after the catch.
In the last of the second it
looked as if the Americans would
get one of these markers right
back when Walt Dropo, the Red
Sox' slugging rookie first-sacker,
drove one down the center of the
fairway that threatened to fall
into the bullpen 415 feet away.
But Slaughter, whom Shotton at
the last moment had shifted to
center in place of Sauer, who
opened in right, hauled down the
ball with his glove hand directly in
front of the low barrier.
However, there was no checking
the Americans in the third, which
saw them clip Roberts for their
[[STATS]]
first tally. Cass Michaels, batting
for Raschi, who had just finished
his three-inning stinnt (sic), all that the
rules allowed at that stage, got
the junior circuit off its mark
with a drive that bounced into the
bullpen for a ground-rule double.
Rizzuto then pulled a neat bunt
down the third-base line. It is
possible Li'l Phil meant it mainly
for a sacrifice, but when Willie
Jones, the Phils' third-sacker, let
it roll in the hope it would stray
foul, the Yanks' Mighty Mite had
his second hit.
It also moved Michaels to third,
from where the Senators' second
sacker presently scored on George
Kell's fly to Slaughter in deep
center.
As the second pair of hurlers appeared
in the fourth, Bob Lemon
for the Americans and Newcombe
for the Nationals, the junior loop
launched an immediate threat as
Dropo greeted Newcombe with a
three-base slam that caromed off
the bull pen wall at a crazy angle.
But big Newcombe squirmed out
of this jam neatly enough. After
Hoot Evers had grounded out,
Dropo erased himself by getting
caught in a run-up between third
and home on Yogi Berra's grounder
to the mound.
In the fifth, however, Newcombe's
luck ran out on him almost
before he knew it and the
Americans were in the lead with a
pair of tallies. An odd feature of
the thrust came in the fact that
of the four Negro players on the
field at the time three of them,
Newcombe, Robinson and the Indians'
Larry Doby, figured in its
key play.
Lemon Draws a Pass
After Lemon had drawn a pass
and Rizzuto had fanned, Doby
lashed a sharp bounder through
the mound and over second. For
a instant it looked as if Robinson
would collar the ball, but it caromed
off his glove for a hit and
as the white pill trickled into centerfield,
Lemon not only tore
around to third, but Doby, flashing
some of his dazzling speed on the
basepaths, slid into second for an
extraordinary two-bagger.
Two American League runs followed.
The first crossed as Kell
again flied to deep center to drive
in his second tally. The second
resulted from Williams' lone hit,
a resounding single to right.
With the Americans in front,
defenses on both sides tightened
and with the exception of the
Kiner homer in the ninth neither
party made any headway until the
struggle was ended in the fourtenth (sic)
by Schoendienst, who had
replaced Robinson at second base
in the eleventh.
Jim Konstanty, the Phils' relief
specialist, blanked the Americans
in the sixth, getting two on strikes.
Jansen followed in the seventh
with five innings of some of the
finest hurling any All-Star classic
has seen.
Permitted to go more than three
because of the tie at the close of
nine innings, the tall Giant right<>hander
allowed only one American
Leaguer to reach first base in his
long stretch through the eleventh.
This was Doby, who singled in
the tenth.
In the meantime, the American
League hurlers were doing quite
all right, too. Lemon swept
through his three innings, from
the fourth through sixth, allowing
one hit, a pinch single by Dick
Sisler.
Then Houtteman held the Nationals
at bay until Kiner, first up
in the ninth, sent a lofty shot that
dropped into the lower left stand.
It was the Pirate slugger's second
homer in All-Star competition.
From the tenth through the
twelfth, the Yanks' Allie Reynolds
[[STATS]]
kept the Nationals bottled, although
the Chief had a close call
in the eleventh when the Nationals
filled the bases on a Kiner double,
an intentional pass to Stan Musial
and an error by Jerry Coleman,
who had entered the encounter
two innings previously to tighten
his side's defense.
But Dom DiMaggio, who, along
with Brother Joe, also had entered
the game in the ninth, ended this
threat with a fine catch of Andy
Pafko's lusty slam to the left field
wall.
In all, forty players appeared in
the struggle, nineteen for the Nationals,
twenty-one for the Americans.
Seven went all the way,
and Jansen's five-inning stint was
the longest stretch by an all-star
hurler since 1935 when, prior to
the three-inning rule, Lefty Gomez
started and reeled off six innings
on the mound.
In addition to losing the ball
game, the American League may
have lost the services of its two
hitting stars. Williams severely
jarred the ligaments of his left
elbow pulling down Kiner's mighty
blast and banging into the left
field scoreboard in the first inning,
and Joe DiMaggio pulled some
abdominal muscles streaking to
first trying to beat the double play
which ended the game.
Whether either will be able to
resume the championship season
Thursday remains to be determined.
To Baseball from 1965