By Harry King
LITTLE ROCK — A strictly Cardinals fan, the young man was OK with the All-Star voting as long as St. Louis first baseman Stan Musial was elected to the starting lineup.
The ballot-stuffing in Cincinnati was reason for indignation, but outrage was better left to adults with a soapbox. Besides, there was studying to be done for the learner’s permit and all-day golf at War Memorial Park was less than $1 in the summer of 1957.
The left-handed hitting Musial, he of the corkscrew batting stance, was the teen’s favorite player. Many times, he heard Harry Caray, Jack Buck and Joe Garagiola describe “The Man’s” hitting accomplishments. And, eyeballing a Musial line-drive single off the right-field screen at Sportsman’s Park seemed to shorten the train ride back to Little Rock.
If Hank Aaron or Willie Mays had played for St. Louis, the Cardinals’ loyalist would have been screaming bloody murder about the All-Star voting.
Both future Hall of Famers were supposed to be subs, even though Aaron was named the league’s MVP that year after hitting 44 home runs with 132 RBI and a .322 batting average. That same year, Mays hit .332 with 35 home runs and 97 RBI.
They lost out in the voting to Gus Bell, who wound up with 13, 61 and .292, and Wally Post (20, 74 and .244). Bell and Post shared the Cincinnati outfield with a legitimate All-Star selection, Frank Robinson. But, by the time Cincinnati fans were finished voting, Musial was going to be the only National League starter who did not play for the Reds.
The Cincinnati Enquirer made it happen, printing pre-marked All-Star ballots with every Sunday paper. The ballots could be clipped and deposited in the ballot boxes. There were even reports that some bars in Cincy refused to serve drinks until a customer voted.
The voting was such a travesty that Commissioner Ford Frick removed Bell and Post from the starting lineup, replacing them with Mays and Aaron. For the next 13 seasons, voting was done by managers, players and coaches, and fans were left to argue about the results.
In this age of electronic voting and short-term allegiances, the starting outfielders for the National League did not matter as much as those who lagged behind and each new vote count was encouraging.
Only 139,789 votes out of third place a couple of weeks ago, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Manny Ramirez is now seventh, more than 742,000 votes behind the Mets’’ Carlos Beltran in third. Each week, Ramirez has dropped a spot in the voting, an encouraging sign that fans are paying attention to his suspension for testing positive for the fertility drug HCG.
Voting continues through today and Ramirez returns from his 50-day suspension on Friday.
Virtually every team in the major leagues is running a promotion of one sort or another, encouraging fans to vote for players on the home team. Among other things, the booty to be had includes autographed All-Star jerseys, free and discounted tickets to regular-season games and use of a suite for a Kansas City game. Milwaukee went one better — the winner of a drawing gets to watch a game from the suite of star outfielder Ryan Braun.
All teams make online voting easy and there is no limit on paper ballots that can be submitted. A woman from Arlington, Va., traded 600 paper ballots for a Washington Nationals’ lineup card and a couple of game balls.
Apparently, nobody offered free samples of HCG in exchange for Ramirez votes.
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Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.
