ARLINGTON, Texas — Major League Baseball was still stinging from a strike that had wiped out the World Series the previous season when the 1995 All-Star Game was played in the stifling Texas heat at the Rangers’ new ballpark.
Buck Showalter certainly remembers how hot it was when he managed the American League squad then. He also knows how important that game was for baseball.
“I think the All-Star Game was a reminder that we’re back to normalcy, so to speak, and that you could trust our game again,” Showalter recalled.
There were 15 future Hall of Fame players on the rosters, with Rangers catcher Ivan Rodriguez among 11 of them who started the game. He got an extended ovation during pregame introductions, then sent the sellout crowd of 50,920 into a frenzy when he threw out leadoff hitter Lenny Dykstra trying to steal second base in the top of the first inning.
“I did what I do best during the game,” Rodriguez said.
Pudge is now one of the ambassadors for another Midsummer Classic in Arlington. This one will be played across the street in Globe Life Field, a stadium with a retractable roof that has already hosted two World Series since opening in 2020.
The heat is still here, but the roof will be closed for the game Tuesday night, as well as for the workout and Home Run Derby the day before. The forecast calls for temperatures in the upper 90s, and maybe even pushing 100 degrees - similar to the sweltering conditions for the All-Star festivities there nearly three decades ago.
“It was like sitting on a griddle,” former Rangers president Tom Schieffer recalled.
The National League won the game 3-2 with all three of its hits being solo home runs. Craig Biggio and Mike Piazza both went deep with two outs, the latter off Rangers lefty Kenny Rogers in the seventh inning, before game MVP Jeff Conine’s game-deciding homer in the eighth.
That old stadium, with a different name, still stands and looks much the same from the outside. But it can no longer host an MLB game.
After the Rangers played their final game there in 2019, the playing surface was reconfigured primarily for football, including artificial turf throughout and the removal of the visitors dugout and about a dozen rows of seats on what was the third-base side. The UFL’s Dallas Renegades and local high school teams play football in the stadium that is also the home of a Major League Rugby team and a reserve team for FC Dallas of Major League Soccer.
Conine’s pinch-hit homer in 1995 landed in the left-center field stands, which have been replaced by permanent seating that extends well past the outfield wall toward the former infield.
MLB is utilizing the old ballpark this week as part of the All-Star Village, including a wiffle ball field situated near where the infield once was and by a nearby domed tent shading the world’s largest baseball. Jerseys and other memorabilia from former Rangers players are on display in their old clubhouse.
The Rangers had moved into that stadium in 1994, after playing their first 22 seasons in Texas at old Arlington Stadium, which was first built as a minor league park.
Rodriguez was one of six future Hall of Famers in the AL starting lineup in 1995, along with first baseman and Home Run Derby champion Frank Thomas, shortstop Cal Ripken Jr., third baseman Wade Boggs, right fielder Kirby Puckett and designated hitter Edgar Martinez. Roberto Alomar entered as a pinch-runner and played second base.
Joining catcher Piazza and second baseman Biggio in the NL lineup were first baseman Fred McGriff, shortstop Barry Larkin and right fielder Tony Gwynn.
Three future Hall of Famers selected for that game didn’t play because of injuries: shortstop Ozzie Smith, pitcher Greg Maddux and center fielder Ken Griffey Jr.
The game-time temperature for the 1995 game was 96 degrees, and more than 100 people were treated at first-aid stations inside the ballpark for heat-related problems such as dehydration and headaches.
It was even hotter during workouts and the Home Run Derby the previous afternoon. That was before the derby was the prime-time showcase it is now.
“My first recollection is how hot it was,” said Showalter, then the manager of the New York Yankees, who had the AL’s best record when the 1994 season ended prematurely Aug. 11 after players went on strike. He later was the Rangers manager from 2003-06. “That was a great facility, except it didn’t have a roof on it. There was nothing wrong with that ballpark.”
Aside from the World Series, the All-Star Game was the only time AL and NL players competed against each other until interleague games began in 1997. The first regular-season interleague game was at Texas, two years after the ASG - a 4-3 win by Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants on June 12.
Globe Life Park is next to Texas Live!, a $250 million dining, entertainment and hospitality complex that opened in 2019, the kind of development that had been envisioned a quarter-century earlier when building the former ballpark. The current stadium is also adjacent to two luxury hotels, one that opened earlier this year in conjunction with a new Arlington Convention Center.
The NFL’s Dallas Cowboys play nearby at AT&T Stadium, which opened in 2009 and was designed by HKS. That is the same company that designed Globe Life Field, where the neutral-site World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Tampa Bay was played at the end of the pandemic-impacted 2020 season before the Rangers won their first championship last fall.
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