Allentown Morning Call - July 6, 1980
3 double plays help Kaat tame Phils on 6 hits, 6-1
ST. LOUIS (AP) – Keith Hernandez drove in three runs and George Hen-drick knocked in two more to help the St. Louis Cardinals to a 6-1 triumph over the Philadelphia Phillies Saturday night.
Cards starter Jim Kaat, 3-5. pitched a six-hitter, struck out two and walked none. The only run he surrendered was unearned.
A two-run single by Hernandez sparked a three-run first inning off Phils starter Randy Lerch, 3-11. The hit followed a leadoff walk by Bobby Bonds and a double by Garry Templeton. Hendrick then drove in the third run with a double.
The Cards added two more runs in the fifth on a single by Bonds, his stolen base, a triple by Hernandez and an RBI single by Hendrick.
St. Louis got its final run in the seventh as Bonds walked, stole second and scored on Simmons' double.
The Phils only run came in the first. Rookie Lonnie Smith singled, stole second and went to third on catcher Ted Simmons' throwing error. Pete Rose's sacrifce fly scored him.
Kaat. 41. in his 22nd major league season, was never seriously threatened thereafter. He was aided by three St. Louis double plays. After the first, only two Phillies got as far as second base: pinch-hitter George Vukovich. who singled in the third and moved to second on a groundout, and Larry Bowa, who doubled.
All-star voting: Shades of the 1957 selection
By Jack McCallum, Call Sports Writer
With the All-Star Game approaching Tuesday night at Los Angeles, it seems only fitting to observe a moment of silence for George Crowe.
George Crowe? That's right, that big. bespectacled first baseman who labored nine mediocre years for the Braves, Redlegs and Cardinals.
In 1957 Crowe was the lone Cincinnati player left off the National League all-star team voted by the fans. A deluge of 500,000 late votes from Crosley Field put second baseman Johnny Temple, shortstop Roy McMillan, third baseman Don Hoak, catcher Ed Bailey (Ed Bailey? ) and outfielders Frank Robinson, Gus Bell and Wally Post on the team.
Because of the overabundance of Cincinnati votes, Commissioner Ford Frick ordered Bell and Post dropped, though National League manager Walter Alston later added Bell to his squad. The National Leaguers had to struggle through with two guys named Aaron and Mays in their lineup instead of Post and Bell.
Not surprisingly, it was after the 1957 season that major league baseball abandoned its fan vote in favor of having the league's managers, coaches and players choose the eight starters. The plan was followed through 1969 until – trumpets please! – Bowie Kuhn came riding to the rescue of the consumer and reinstated the policy of fan selection.
Thus, on Tuesday night you can gather in front of your TV screens to watch an All-Star second baseman who is hitting .243 and an All-Star outfielder who catches flyballs like he's fighting off bees. You will NOT see a shortstop who is hitting .327, or a second baseman who is hitting .318, or an outfielder who is hitting .310 with 17 home runs, 10 more than the beekeeper who, as I far as I can tell, gets paid ONLY to hit home runs.
Take heart, though. You COULD VE seen Steve Yeager as an all-star catcher. Things can always be worse.
I don't want to belabor this point. Criticism of the All-Star Game is getting like kicking puppies or throwing sand in Tiny Tim's face on the beach. Besides, I figure if the populace can elect presidents it sure as hell can elect catchers (though political voters, I must add, are only given one vote, except in certain wards of Chicago ). But common sense compels me to look askance at this year's All-Star selections.
To begin with, someone – perhaps it was George Crowe – had it in for this game from the beginning. Three of the fans' better choices won't be able to play because of injuries – second baseman Paul Molitor (Milwaukee) and third baseman Georg Brett (Kansas City) for the American League and third baseman Mike Schmidt (Phillies) for the National League. Boston's Jim Rice, a much shakier selection, will also surrender his starting A.L. position because of injury.
The fans didn 't need any help from injuries to screw up the game: they could take care of that by themselves, thank you very much. My personal peeve is that they voted in the Cubs' Dave Kingman, the aforementioned beekeeper, who is somehow hitting .285 (with half a season to sink to his .241 lifetime level) with only 10 home runs. A slightly better choice might be George Hendrick of St. Louis who is hitting .310 with 17 homers and is a better fielder, a classification slightly smaller than a black hole. Neither Kingman nor Hendricks talks to the press, but at least Hendrick doesn't waste paper by writing a silly news paper column.
Johnny Bench is the starting catcher. Look, I like Johnny Bench, you like Johnny Bench, everybody likes Johnny Bench. But Ted Simmons of St. Louis may be the best all-around offensive catcher since Yogi Berra.
Pittsburgh's Dave Parker probably shouldn't have been selected, either, but his choice isn't absurd. Parker, hitting .288 with nine home runs and 42 RBIs after Friday's games, is at least a complete ballplayer and he drinks a mean bottle of 7-Up.
That was not the beverage being consumed by the fans, however, when they voted in the Dodgers' Davey Lopes and Bill Russell, a keystone combination for all times. Though Russell has been hitting around .290 most of the season, he will lose at least a half dozen games with his glove at shortstop. With Dave Conception and Larry Bowa having mediocre offensive years and with Tim Foli injured part of the time, there was only one possible choice – Garry Templeton of St. Louis, who has been among the top three in hitting in the National League all season.
Lopes, he of the .243 batting average, was not only chosen to start at second base but also gathered the most votes.
Actually, there is no shortage of second baseman having horsebleep years. Lopes' average puts him ahead of other candidates such as Rodney Scott, Joe Morgan, Dave Cash and that distinguished million-dollar free agent, Rennie Stennett. Amid this junk heap, however, is a man having a Rolls Royce of a year – one Jesus Manuel Trillo of the Phillies. With Trillo hitting .318 and fielding flawlessly, the second base choice might've been the easiest on the board. Instead, Trillo finished a distant fifth, more than three million votes behind Lopes.
It does not take Harris and Gallup to see that Lopes and Russell (and Yeager, who finished second to Bench, 125,000 votes ahead of Simmons) are primarily the products of Dodger Stadium voters... and the Dodgers ALWAYS lead the league in attendance.
Those fans also voted in outfielder Reggie Smith and first baseman Steve Garvey. Smith deserves it. Garvey, though he leads the majors in RBIs, doesn't particularly since his selection precludes the Cards' Keith Hernandez, easily one of the game's top five all-around players. (Actually, first base has emerged as one of the more quality positions in the National League with Pete Rose only able to finish fourth.)
On the whole, the American League voters were a little sounder of mind except at shortstop where they voted in the Yankees' Bucky Dent and left Detroit's Alan Trammell seventh. At last glance, Trammel was hitting .330 and Dent was at .249.
But for all-around unsoundness, you just can't beat the National League team. I only wish George Crowe would be available to pinch-hit.
‘New Look’ A.L. stars hope to end dry spell
By Hal Bock, Associated Press Sports Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Battling a dry spell which has lasted 17 years, the American League takes a new-look team into the 1980 All-Star Game against the National League Tuesday night in Dodger Stadium.
Half of the players on the 28-man AL team will be making their All-Star debuts, hoping to snap a hex which has seen the Americans manage only one victory in this series since 1963. The Nationals have won eight straight games and 16 of the last 17 contests. The only AL victory over that stretch was a 6-4 decision in 1971 at Detroit. Overall, the NL holds a 31-18-1 edge.
Trying to break the NL stranglehold, the Americans will use some fresh faces. Only two pitchers on Manager Earl Weaver's eight-man All-Star staff have appeared in these games before. They are New York Yankee teammates Tommy John and Rich Gossage.
Weaver's other hurlers are all new to this midseason gathering of baseball's best players. They are starters Larry Gura of Kansas City, Steve Stone of Baltimore. Rick Honeycutt of Seattle and Dave Stieb of Toronto, and relievers Ed Farmer of Chicago and Tom Burgmeier of Boston.
The National League, on the other hand, has assembled a veteran All-Star pitching staff, headed by 13-game winner Steve Carlton, the top winner in either league. Carlton was the NL starter last season and was the starter and winner of the 1969 game.
Backing him are Jerry Reuss of Los Angeles, who started the 1975 game for the NL and has authored the season's only no-hitter, Jim Bibby of Pittsburgh, J R. Richard of Houston and Bob Welch of Los Angeles, Bruce Sutter of Chicago, the winning pitcher in the last two All-Star games, and Kent Tekulve of Pittsburgh.
Bibby, Richard. Tekulve and Welch each were picked for the first time as was Ed Whitson of San Francisco, named to replace teammate Vida Blue.
Three of the eight AL starters elected in the fan vote will not be available because of injuries. They are left fielder Jim Rice of the Boston Red Sox, second baseman Paul Molitor of the Milwaukee Brewers and third baseman George Brett of the Kansas City Royals. All three will be with the club but have been replaced on the AL roster.
The other AL starters are Rod Carew of California at first base, New York's Bucky Dent at shortstop, Boston's Fred Lynn and Reggie Jackson of New York in the outfield, and Carlton Fisk of Boston catching.
Besides the six pitchers, other first-time AL stars are catcher Lance Parrish of Detroit, shortstops Alan Trammell of Detroit and Robin Yount of Milwaukee, and outfielders Ken Landreaux of Minnesota, Al Bumbry of Baltimore, Rickey Henderson of Oakland, Ben Oglivie of Milwaukee and Jorge Orta of Cleveland.
Completing the AL team are Kansas City catcher Darrell Porter, first baseman Cecil Cooper of Milwaukee, second basemen Bobby Grich of California and Willie Randolph of New York, third basemen Buddy Bell of Texas and Graig Nettles of New York, and outfielder Al Oliver of Texas.
The NL starting team includes four members of the host Los Angeles Dodgers. They are first baseman Steve Garvey, second baseman Davey Lopes, shortstop Bill Russell and outfielder Reggie Smith. Also elected to the starting eight were third baseman Mike Schmidt of Philadelphia, outfielders Dave Parker of Pittsburgh, the MVP in this game a year ago, and Dave Kingman of Chicago and catcher Johnny Bench of Cincinnati. Schmidt, out with a hamstring pull, was replaced on the NL squad by Cincinnati third baseman Ray Knight.
First baseman Pete Rose of Philadelphia, appearing on his 14th All-Star squad, heads a list of 12 reserves added to the NL team.
Also picked for the squad were catchers Gary Carter of Montreal and John Stearns of the New York Mets, first baseman Keith Hernandez of St. Louis, second baseman Phil Garner of Pittsburgh, shortstop Dave Concepcion of Cincinnati, third baseman Ken Reitz of St. Louis and outfielders Jose Cruz of Houston, Ken Griffey of Cincinnati. George Hendrick of St. Louis, Dale Murphy of Atlanta and Dave Winfield of San Diego.
For the NL. Cruz, Murphy, Reitz and Knight will be making their All-Star debuts. The rest of the team has played in at least one of these games before.
Lopes led all players in votes with 3,862,403, winning the Gillette trophy, while Carew. the AL vote leader with 3,674,247, pushed his all-time total to 26,532,700.