1946 A Great All Star Game

The year 1946 saw the return of all of our servicemen and women  who risked their lives to destroy one tyrant but unfortunately by their efforts assisted in the advancement of another.  The baseball players returned and the year 1946 from the majors to the San Francisco Seals was great. The Seals drew over 700,000 people for the season featuring two future major league all stars Ferris Fain and Larry Jansen.

The 1946 All Star game was exciting for me because the game was broadcast by Mel Allen on the radio direct from Fenway Park sponsored by Gillette Blue Blades.  Ted Williams the great Red Sox slugger was the story.  In the last of the eighth inning he hit one of Rip Sewell's  'Eephus pitch' well into the bleachers sending the crowd into a frenzy. The 'eephjus pitch' looked like a pitch one would see in a slow pitch softball game.

Today it is hard to imagine:

- that  one of the starters from tonight's game in New York even playing the eighth inning.  Most of them by that time will be on a plane. 

-  that Gillette would sponsor major league baseball today with so many player looking like complete slobs one trying to out do the other.

-  that there will ever be another all star like Ted Williams. Ted hit .406 in 1941 and then missed the next three seasons in the prime of his career fighting World War II as a Captain in the Marine Corp.  He played  six games in 1952 before being called to fight the Korean War to help stop the tyrant of Word War II the US supported who was getting too powerful  and then he  finally returned to the Red Sox for the last month in 1953 season.  

Homer Sweeney