Nationals’ fans can only hope that NL All-Star skipper Clint Hurdle finds a way to get shortstop Cristian Guzman into tonight’s game at Yankee Stadium in some meaningful way. Guzman leads the league in hits with 126, and is second overall in Major League Baseball. Plus, he was originally a Yankee product, traded away to Minnesota for Chuck Knoblauch in 1998. One would hope he’d get more than just a token at-bat.
Nationals Park will likely get an All-Star Game of its own in the next few years. The city has hosted 4 games previously: 1937, 1956, 1962 and 1969. The last time the All-Stars came to town, Washington’s Frank Howard homered in his only at-bat, and lefty reliever Darold Knowles retired the only 2 hitters he faced. The NL won, 9-3.
The 1962 All-Star Game was the highlight of the inaugural season at RFK — then known as District of Columbia Stadium. It was also the final year of baseball holding two All-Star matchups, something that had started in 1959: play one, wait three weeks and play another one. The Washington game was the first one that summer, and righthander Dave Stenhouse was representing the Senators. It’s worth pointing out here that Stenhouse was 6-4 at the break prior to the first game on a club that was, quite frankly, terrible. The 1962 club lost 101 games and was dead last in virtually every offensive category.
AL Manager Ralph Houk used only 4 pitchers that day, none of them named Stenhouse. Perhaps, since D.C. native Maury Wills was the game’s MVP with a single, a stolen base and 2 runs scored in a 3-1 NL win, Houk thought the city would be satisfied with that. Three weeks later — a Monday afternoon, by the way — the leagues matched up again, this time at Wrigley Field, and by this time Stenhouse had won 4 straight decisions and was 10-4. On this day, he’d not only pitch, he’d start for the AL.
“I didn’t know I was starting until I got on the bus at the hotel that morning,” he told me some years back when he was coaching college baseball in Rhode Island. “Houk walked past where I was sitting and told me he was giving me the ball, and at first it didn’t really register.”
You see, Stenhouse had participated in teammate Claude Osteen’s wedding the previous day, and on the morning after the reception, he was, let’s say, not registering a whole lot of anything.
Still, he got to the field, worked out the signs and warmed up with catcher Earl Battey, and went to work in the bottom of the first. He hit the NL’s first batter, shortstop Dick Groat (“I guess I was a little nervous”) and then retired Roberto Clemente on a flyball to right. Willie Mays then hit a short single to left with Groat stopping at second. He then walked Orlando Cepeda to load the bases (“Some of those pitches were close”) before Tommy Davis fouled out to Battey and Ken Boyer lined out to short. He retired the first two hitters in the second before giving up a double to pitcher Johnny Podres — ouch — and Groat singled him in. He then struck out Clemente to end the inning and his day.
Stenhouse is largely forgotten by local fans these days — he went 1-8 the rest of that year and 16-28 for his career — but on that day in 1962, he held his own with the best the game had to offer, and helped his league win, 9-4. Here’s hoping Guzman gets his chance on the big stage tonight.
Phil Wood is a contributor to Nats Xtra on MASN. Contact him at [email protected].
