Rant #1,711: My All-Star Game

Tonight is baseball's annual mid-summer classic, the All-Star Game.

It is being held in San Diego this year, and features the game's best players, or at least the best players who aren't injured.

A number of players who were either voted into the game or were chosen to appear in the game are injured, so with all the All-Stars and replacement All-Stars, tonight will be a game that features most of today's best players.

I love the All-Star game, and I love all the pageantry that goes along with it.

It pits the best of the American League against the best of the National League, and it is always a fun game to watch, in particular, watching the players from your team.

This year, with the Yankees a mere .500 team at the break, they have three players on the team, outfielder/DH Carlos Beltran and relief pitchers Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller.

So tonight is the game, but about 46 years ago, I had my own All-Star game to play in, and I still have memories of it.

It was the only All-Star game of any kind that I ever played in, and the memories of that game are pretty vivid to me to this day.

It was in day camp, namely Rochdale Village Day Camp, the camp run by the neighborhood that I lived in way back when in South Jamaica, Queens, New York.

I had been an umpire in previous games in earlier years but in about 1970, I finally made the team as a player.

This is in the pre-PC times, when the counselors would pick the best players of all the day campers to play in such a game, based on their play in the several games we would play during the camping season in July and August.

In those days, yes, kids were excluded, and nobody thought twice about it as they would do today.

I was a terrible player, I was usually picked near the bottom when we had to choose sides, but by May of 1970--the month of my bar mitzvah--I had grown up, physically and literally.

Right after my bar mitzvah, I sprouted up about seven inches in a month, to the height I am today, 5 feet, 9 inches.

I also got stronger from the top down, and in baseball, since the kids still based my skills on how I was just a few weeks before, all the outfielders would play me way in, because when I was punier, I could barely hit the ball to the outfield.

This led to a number of instances where, with my bigger self, I was able to hit the ball way over the outfielders' heads, and I had a pretty good day camp season, leading to my being named to the camp All-Star team.

I remember that when they read off my name as a member of the team, they used extra emphasis, as if to say as they were reading my name, "CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT HE MADE THIS TEAM?"

So, it was the counselors versus the campers, and I was an All-Star.

During that game, I was the catcher. I seem to remember that I dropped one popout and I got one other.

I did better as a hitter.

I just remember one of the at bats, but the counselor on third base went under the name of Mark Kram. I forget his real name right now, but he was the one who called out my name as an All-Star, and he was making fun of me as I was at bat.

He said something to the effect that I couldn't hit anything, that he dared me to hit the ball to him ... so although I did miss the first two pitches, the third pitch I returned the favor to him.

I hit the ball so hard to him that it almost took his head off, and the line drive went into left field for a single.

In fact, I think the campers actually won that game, beating the counselors, and I was happy to have played in it and made Mark Kram look like an idiot.

That was the only All-Star game of any kind that I ever played in, but it is so funny that I still remember it pretty clearly all these years later.

The players we will be watching tonight have been in All-Star games since they were in T-Ball, but they all react the same way to this real All-Star game.

Most of them love the chance to show off their skills to the world, and they all seem to have fun at the game.

They are also somewhat humbled to be there, too, showing their human side.

I was humbled myself all those years ago, and yes, it was nice to be considered an All-Star for my supposed athletic prowess, even if it was just for one time in my life.

So I will watch tonight's game in awe of the talent these players have.

Heck, I wish I had such talent all those years ago, but at least I got a taste of what it meant to be an All-Star, even if it was in a camp All-Star game.

It was an experience I will never forget.