Where have you gone, Dick Dietz?

JOHN MCGRATH; THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Last updated: July 14th, 2008 01:20 AM (PDT)

Morgan dreams of those All-Star Games when opponents didn’t talk to each other during pregame warm-ups, didn’t exchange pleasantries on the basepaths, didn’t hang out together at the postgame gala.

Then again, in Morgan’s era, there was no postgame gala. The winning All-Star team probably feasted on canned sardines and cheese sandwiches on a clubhouse picnic table, and they considered themselves fortunate if the bread was fresh. The losers got the leftovers. Well, that, and lives doomed to scorn and ridicule.

“Part of the reason the game doesn’t bring that energy is it’s a different game now,” Morgan told reporters on a conference call last week. “Now it’s considered an exhibition, whereas before it was considered life and death.”

Life and death? Really?

If it was life and death, how was it possible that two All-Star Games – featuring virtually the same lineups – were played each season between 1959 and 1962? The grieving process must’ve been minimal.

Anyway, Morgan rarely expounds on baseball issues without positing an intriguing theory, and his theory about the All-Star Game is that the life-and-death urgency of the contest has been compromised by managers determined to ensure playing time for as many participants as possible.

“If you had Willie Mays and those guys with the attitude that they had playing now, you’d have that same awareness,” Morgan explained. “I don’t say the players don’t play hard. Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here.

“I’m saying that before, Willie Mays might play the whole game, Hank Aaron might play the whole game. Now it’s, you know, two innings, three innings, and everything is changed. By the sixth inning or something, you do not have same type of stars in the game that you had before.”

Morgan’s thoughts got me wondering about Mays’ All-Star record. His made his initial appearance in 1954 – the year he won his first league MVP – as a reserve. Fans were voting for the All-Star teams that season. They also were voting for the All-Star teams the following season, when they chose an NL outfield of Del Ennis, Duke Snider and Don Mueller. On the bench were Mays, Aaron and Stan Musial.

I wasn’t sitting in the stands at Milwaukee’s County Stadium in 1955, so I don’t know if the crowd was bummed out when elected starters such as Ennis and Mueller gave way to substitutes such as Aaron, Mays and Musial. I suspect there was a minimum of outcry.

Curious starting lineups, by the way, seem to be a stable of the All-Star Game’s “glory days.” In 1958, Kansas City’s Bob Cerv was the AL’s left fielder, and Gus Triandos was appointed as starting catcher. (Ted Williams, Yogi Berra and Al Kaline were reserves.)

In the first 1959 All-Star Game, Williams again was consigned to the All-Star bench, joined by Mickey Mantle. Williams pinch hit and walked. Mantle saw action as a pinch runner and stayed in the game as an outfielder. He never got to the plate.

Think about this: There was no more famous baseball star in 1959 than Mickey Mantle, and his primary All-Star role was as a ... pinch runner.

Despite the inevitable complaints that an “Everybody Plays” All-Star edict is rooted in the modern youth-sports mind-set that there are no losers, emptying the bench at an All-Star Game is prudent and practical.

It can make for a sloppy scorecard, but those yearning for a chance are going to be at least as fired up as those who’ve planned on playing all along. Last season’s 5-4 AL victory was sealed when the Angels’ Frankie Rodriguez – in relief of would-be closer J.J. Putz – struck out Aaron Rowand with the bases loaded.

Life and death it wasn’t, but the energy of the game, after the managers emptied their benches, was quite more palpable than when Alex Rodriguez failed to score from second base after a fifth-inning single. A-Rod trotted toward the plate, and he was out by 20 feet.

Exhibit A for All-Star Game electricity will always be Pete Rose barreling into catcher Ray Fosse to score the winning run for the NL in 1970. Rose began the game on the bench, along with Willie McCovey, Roberto Clemente and Joe Torre. For that matter, so did Fosse, as well Jim Hickman, the hitter whose line drive made the epic collision possible.

There’s always going to be some grousing about no-names filling in for household names. In that 1970 game, Johnny Bench, the premier catcher of the past 40 years, was replaced by the Giants’ Dick Dietz, appearing in his first and last All-Star Game.

Dietz was clearly a step down in class, but it was a sweltering night in Cincinnati, and NL manager Gil Hodges – a reserve in six All-Star Games himself – was an early proponent of spreading the wealth.

On an evening distinguished by a Who’s Who of baseball legends, the only home run was hit by, yep, Dick Dietz.

When the 2008 All-Stars gather in Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night, the winners won’t celebrate by turning the pitcher’s mound into a mosh pit in the infield, and the losers won’t remain in the dugout, alone with their thoughts, beyond consolation.

But it’s likely that somebody who wasn’t selected to start – somebody who in Joe Morgan’s ideal world would not even take the field – will contribute meaningfully with a hit, or a catch, or a throw.

And years later, this All-Star reserve will be able to savor the beauty of a record book that doesn’t differentiate the Cooperstown-bound icons from those who realize they were lucky to be included.

Dick Dietz, the obscure catcher who replaced Johnny Bench in 1970, hit as many home runs in an All-Star Game as Joe DiMaggio, Ken Griffey Jr., Ernie Banks, Roberto Clemente, Reggie Jackson, Mike Schmidt, Carl Yastrzemski and Babe Ruth.

John McGrath: 253-597-8742; ext. 6154

john.mcgrath@thenewstribune.com

Originally published: July 14th, 2008 01:20 AM (PDT)