The Greatest All-Star Games, Part 2

No Swing-Offs Here, Only Walkoffs

We pick up from yesterday, where we examined two of the best All-Star Games ever and continue on with two more highly heralded classics.

Perhaps the most enduringly famous of all was the 1941 game. This was the year that Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams battled it out all year for supremacy, with the Yankee Clipper hitting in 56 consecutive games and the Splendid Splinter posting the last .400 batting average.

Williams was batting .405 at the time of the game. He upped it a point at year’s end. He did not win the league MVP award, however. That went to his Bronx rival. The inexact science of WAR, however, begs to differ, giving Williams the edge 10.4 to 9.3.

Williams might have deserved an extra point for his All-Star heroics alone. With the A.L. trailing 5-3 in the bottom of the ninth and the bases loaded with one out, DiMaggio beat out a double play grounder to keep hopes alive for the junior circuit. Williams followed up with perhaps the most famous home run in the All-Star Game’s history to win it for the A.L.

The two rivals get to be chums one day of the year

Arky Vaughn’s two run homer put the N.L. up by a run in the top of the seventh

Some other scenes from the day

The game’s starting pitchers

We move ahead toward the golden years of Williams and the man who was very much his National League counterpart, Stan Musial.

The 1955 contest went into the 12th inning, tied at 5-5. The National League overcame a 5-0 deficit and tied the game with two runs in the seventh and three in the eighth. The three pitchers who kept it within range for the N.L. were hardly perennial All-Stars: Sam Jones, Joe Nuxhall and Gene Conley shut the A.L. down over the last five innings, allowing just two hits.

In the bottom of the twelfth, it ended quickly, with Stan the Man matching Williams’ feat from 14 years earlier with a game-ending home run.

Mickey Mantle gave the A.L. an early 4-0 cushion with his three-run homer in the first

Willie Mays robbed Williams of a home run in the seventh inning

Nellie Fox dove to thwart Red Schoendienst of a steal of second

Robin Roberts — long before donning a Braves jacket for the on-field celebration — matched up with Billy Pierce as the game’s starting pitchers.

We’ll close this out tomorrow with a look at a couple of more games, including a 15-inning affair which presaged the year of the pitcher.