The league ERA that year was 3.71, and Griffith Stadium wasn't that much of a pitchers' park, so he wasn't especially dominant. Masterson was an All-Star the year before, when he went 12-16 with a 3.13 for a horrible Senators team.
#From rookie to all star football story full#
Also of note: Walker was a last-minute replacement for Van Mungo, whose full name was Van Lingle Mungo. I couldn't ask Schumacher to pitch the whole game, could I, without getting into a fight with Bill Terry?"Ī Frankie Frisch/Bill Terry fight would have been huge news, actually. All three of the others, Dizzy Dean, Paul Derringer, and Carl Hubbell, pitched the day before.
"Sure, I figured Hal was our ace but I had to take into account that he and Walker were the only two fresh pitchers available. The papers of the day shine a little light on the scenario: "It's sheer second-guessing to say I should have started (Hal) Schumacher," (manager Frankie Frisch) declared. In 1935, he was 6-2, with a 3.56 ERA in 14 starts before the All-Star Game … okay, but nothing dominant.
#From rookie to all star football story cracked#
But in an era of four-man rotations, Walker hadn't cracked the 200-innings barrier in the three seasons before 1935, serving most of his time as a part-time reliever, part-time starter. Walker led the league in ERA when he pitched for the New York Giants in both 19, so it's not like he was an unknown. The last three teams Stenhouse pitched for before he represented the Washington Senators in the All-Star Game: Jersey City Jerseys, Seattle Rainiers, and Fort Worth Cats. He was 11-2 with a 2.73 ERA before the All-Star Game, so you can at least see where the decision came from, but Stenhouse was still picked over more establish pitchers like Jim Bunning, Milt Pappas, and Jim Kaat, among others. He was a minor-league free-agent type, not a phenom. Okay, fine, it's not that unusual for a rookie phenom to capture the imagination of the baseball world … except Stenhouse was 28. Here's a look at the six oddest choices to start an the All-Star Gameĭave Stenhouse pitched three seasons in the majors, and he started the second All-Star Game in 1962 as a rookie. There have been some weirder starting-pitcher decisions in All-Star Game history, though. But there was still some manufactured controversy. Most of them acknowledged that Cain wasn't the worst choice in the world, at least. To the credit of most Mets fans, they didn't go full Internet rage - just partial Internet rage. Everybody expected Dickey to start the All-Star Game, but Cain was Tony La Russa's surprise choice because This Time It Counts, and Dickey throws a haunted pitch that catchers like to drop, and Tony La Russa is a genius, and … Monday's controversy had to do with Matt Cain and R.A. Four years ago, people were actively forcing opinions on you regarding whether Kosuke Fukudome or Nate McLouth should start for the National League. Manufactured controversies are just the best, and there's nothing that brings out the manufactured controversies quite like the All-Star Game.