1936 All-Star Game

After three consecutive losses to the American League, the National League finally came in from the cold. Its breakthrough came largely because of the pitching of its two widely contrasting aces Dizzy Dean and Carl Hubbell. They both took the mound as a hard-throwing combo that had won fifty games together that year.

Dean worked the first three innings and gave up neither a hit nor a run. Then Hubbell pitched the next three and gave up only two hits and no runs. The American League started Lefty Grove of the Red Sox and the National League drilled him for two runs in the bottom of the second. The American League also started a young rookie right fielder named Joe DiMaggio. A rookie starting in the All-Star Game was without precedent, especially a twenty-one year-old who happened to be hitting .358. Unfortunately, his debut was one of the few times in his career that DiMaggio disappointed as he committed two major errors and went 0-5 at the plate.

Strangely, after the record setting attendance of the second All-Star game, the National League's first victory was witnessed by the smallest crowd ever to attend one. The Newspaper stories had assured Bostonians that the game was a sellout, when in fact, the attendance was only 25,556 with 15,000 seats remaining empty.