The First All-Star Game: Babe Ruth, FDR and America at the Crossroads

Acclaimed journalist Randall Sullivan tells the story of baseball in America, from its rough-and-tumble origins through the first decades of the twentieth century and into the pivotal summer of 1933-when national crisis and a sport’s fight for survival converged in baseball’s first All-Star Game1933.America was still reeling from the crash. Breadlines stretched around city blocks, and shantytowns sprawled in the shadows of skyscrapers.American optimism was fading-and baseball was in trouble, too.Owners slashed budgets, fans stayed home, and even the mighty Babe Ruth seemed to have lost some of his magic.The election of Franklin D. Roosevelt offered hope, but just days before his inauguration, five shots rang out-missing the president-elect, killing the mayor of Chicago, and setting in motion a chain of events that would eventually bring together the world’s best ballplayers for the first All-Star Game. It was a newspaperman’s idea: The Game of the Century.Put the world’s best players o