Stan the Man ends game with a bang

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Today: St. Louis Cardinal Stan Musial launched a Frank Sullivan fastball into the right-field seats in the 12th inning in 1955 to give the National League the win in one of the more dramatic finishes in All-Star history.

As Stan Musial prepared to lead off the bottom of the 12th inning in the 1955 All-Star Game, National League coach Harry Walker called him aside.

"Let this end now," said Walker, manager of the St. Louis Cardinals and a National League coach. "I'm getting hungry."

And Stan the Man was getting weary, he would say later. Neither had long to wait. When the American League pitcher, Frank Sullivan of the Boston Red Sox, grooved a fastball, Musial stroked it into the right-field bleachers for one of the more dramatic finishes in All-Star history.

"I remember it was getting dark fast," said Al Rosen, the former Cleveland third baseman who played for the AL in that game. "Stan really crushed the ball. The minute he hit it, you knew it was all over."

Only two other All-Star Games have ended with what years later became known as "walk-off" homers - by Boston's Ted Williams in 1941 and Philadelphia's Johnny Callison in 1964.

In 1955, many believed Musial, the oldest player in the game at age 34, to be past his prime, though he still had five .300 seasons and one batting title in his future. The Cardinals had moved him to first base that year, and it was Cincinnati's Ted Kluszewski, not Musial, who was voted by fans as the starter at first base.

But Musial's name was still magic, and the sellout crowd at County Stadium in Milwaukee, which had gotten a major-league team just three years earlier when the Braves moved from Boston, were delighted when NL Manager Leo Durocher sent Musial up to hit for left-field starter Del Ennis in the fourth inning.

"Stan was an icon," Rosen said. "We had Willie Mays, Hank (Aaron), Campy (Roy Campanella), but Stan was a guy who really stood out as a player. He wasn't flamboyant like some guys are, but he just went about his business, and he was very affable, very popular. I never saw him without a smile on his face. I saw him a couple of weeks ago, and although he's unfortunately battling some health problems, he's still the same way."

The start of the game was delayed half an hour so baseball officials could attend the funeral of Arch Ward, the Chicago Tribune sports editor who had conceived the idea of an All-Star Game 22 years earlier. When the game began, the AL scored three runs off NL starter Robin Roberts before the first out was recorded, the bulk of the damage coming on Mickey Mantle's three-run home run.

Durocher's decision to start Roberts over Dodger ace Don Newcombe, who had a 14-1 record, was one of several hotly debated - and second-guessed - managing decisions in the game. The bulk were by AL Manager Al Lopez, who had some explaining to do as the AL lost the 5-0 lead it had built heading into the seventh.

In the top of the eighth, with the score 5-2, the AL loaded the bases with two outs, but Lopez let pitcher Whitey Ford bat for himself - against fellow lefty Joe Nuxhall - and Ford promptly struck out. Not only that, but Ford then allowed the NL to tie the score with three in the bottom of the eighth after two were out, a rally that included hits by Mays, Kluszewski, Randy Jackson and Hank Aaron, along with a Rosen error on a throw from Al Kaline. Earlier in the game, Mays had made a sensational leaping catch in right-center to rob Williams of a home run.

Lopez also chose to let Sullivan, who relieved Ford in the eighth, hit for himself with a man aboard in the 10th. Sullivan had already worked 3-1/3 innings when Musial stepped up to start the 12th, the AL having blown a chance to score with two on and two out in the 11th when Yogi Berra was nipped at first base on a close play. In the 12th, NL reliever Gene Conley, the former Washington State University player who would go on to win three NBA championships with the Boston Celtics, struck out the side - Kaline, Mickey Vernon and Rosen.

Musial, meanwhile, had done little in the game, striking out his first time up and grounding out twice. As he stepped into the batter's box, Musial told Berra he was tired.

"Yeah," Berra answered. "Ain't it tough, trying to see with all them shadows?"

Sullivan, at 6 feet 7, was one of the few pitchers who could see eye to eye with the 6-8 Conley, for whom he would be traded six years later. Conley had lost the previous year's All-Star Game but was on the verge of earning a victory. Berra asked for a fastball in, but Sullivan didn't get it in far enough. Musial still holds the All-Star record with six career homers in 24 All-Star Games.

"It wasn't what Yogi called," Sullivan would say later. "It was a lousy pitch - over the plate and over the letters."

And Musial sent it over the fence, into All-Star history.

Larry Stone can be reached at 206-464-3146 or lstone@seattletimes.com.