People and Pop Culture
D.C.’s summer of ’69
Major League Baseball this week returns its All-Star Game to the nation’s capital for the first time in nearly 50 years. Think this year’s event is a hot ticket? The 1969 edition featured 22 eventual Hall of Famers who shone despite weather-related drama that forced a presidential change of plans.
MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn watches as Vice President Spiro Agnew prepares to toss the first pitch at the 1969 MLB All-Star Game. Getty Images
Tuesday’s MLB All-Star Game at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., is predictably in high demand, with prices on StubHub rising far above face value and dignitaries clamoring for access to this week’s slate of All-Star festivities.
But Washington’s affinity for big events, and the All-Star Game in particular, was codified nearly 50 years ago when the Midsummer Classic was last in the nation’s capital. The 1969 game, a 9-3 victory for the National League at RFK Stadium, had its own fervent demand. A sellout crowd of 45,259 was larger than any crowd the long-suffering Washington Senators had drawn to the ballpark since 1962, and the figure wouldn’t be surpassed until baseball returned to Washington in 2005 after a 33-season absence.
“Washington is a place that really gets excited about something of worldwide significance,” said Charlie Brotman, the longtime stadium announcer at both RFK Stadium and its predecessor, Griffith Stadium. Brotman, now 90, was on hand for the ’69 All-Star Game and one previously held at RFK in 1962, and will attend Tuesday’s game.
The All-Star Game was extremely popular. Everybody wanted tickets to it. If it was important, people wanted a piece of it. We had calls coming in from all sorts of embassies.
Charlie Brotman
Longtime stadium announcer
“The All-Star Game was extremely popular,” he said. “Everybody wanted tickets to it. If it was important, people wanted a piece of it. We had calls coming in from all sorts of embassies. Now of course, when those calls came in from the embassies, they expected complimentary tickets.”
The 1969 All-Star Game, featuring 22 eventual Hall of Famers, was unusual in several respects. A July 22 downpour forced then-MLB Commissioner and D.C. native Bowie Kuhn to postpone the scheduled game, a first for the All-Star Game. That scuttled a planned appearance by President Richard Nixon, who earlier that day hosted a baseball reception at the White House celebrating the sport’s 100th anniversary. Nixon couldn’t stay for the makeup at 2:45 p.m. the following afternoon because he had to head out for the splashdown of the Apollo 11 astronauts who had just been on the moon. Vice President Spiro Agnew attended in his place in what remains the last All-Star Game not played in Eastern prime time.
“I did meet Nixon on a number of other occasions, and as far as presidents are concerned, he’s No. 1 in terms of knowledge about baseball,” said Brotman, who was also the inauguration parade announcer for 11 U.S. presidents. “He read the sports pages all the time and was a genuine sports fan.”
