Major League Baseball’s First Ever All Star Game

The first ever Major League All Star Game took place in 1933, in Chicago at Comiskey Park.  The whole idea behind the All Star Game was to take baseball out of it’s slump.  Baseball was in a slump because of the Great Depression, the average attendance went down 40 percent, and the average player’s salary went down 25 percent.  In Chicago, they hosted a World Fair known as the Century of Progress International Exposition, this was to boost everyone’s spirits in the darkest times of the Great Depression.  Mayor Edward Kelly, who was newly elected wanted to make the fair a success and approached Colonel Robert McCormick the powerful publisher of the Chicago Tribune.  Mayor Edward Kelly proposed the idea of holding a major sports event along with the Fair, McCormick then gave the idea to his sport editor, Arch Ward.

Arch Ward then proposed the idea of the Game of the Century, now known as the All Star Game.  The idea of the game was to have the best players from the National League and the Best of the American League with the fans being able to vote on the players.  55 newspapers were printed with the ballots and shipped out to every state across America.  The fans delivered and voted several hundreds of thousands of votes.  At the top of the list, were players like Babe Ruth, Lefty Grove, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Al Simmons, Joe Cronin, and many more great players of that time. On July 6, 1933, around 48,000 fans packed into the stadium, the game ended up being close game with a 4-2 victory by the American League.  It was an instant hit because after the first All Star Game it has become a yearly event held by Major League Baseball.  That is how Major League Baseball hit it’s way out of it’s slump with the annual mid-season, All Star Game.

Information found at:   https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/major-league-baseballs-first-all-star-game-is-held