Thirty years ago, the All-Star Game returned to South Philadelphia for the first time since the bicentennial.<\/p>\n
1996 featured a much different sports world.<\/p>\n
The Cowboys had just won a Super Bowl, their last one since. Michael Jordan, in his first full season back from baseball, had just led the Bulls to a 72-10 season and another NBA title. The Summer Olympics were headed for Atlanta.<\/p>\n
The Eagles drafted Brian Dawkins, then the 76ers drafted Allen Iverson. <\/p>\n
And Philadelphia was still thawing out from a winter it would not forget.<\/p>\n
The \u201cBlizzard of \u201996\u201d buried the city and surrounding area in nearly 31 inches of snow in January. By July, the snow was gone, but the eventual 67-95 Phillies still looked stuck in it.<\/p>\n
They were buried in the National League East, three years removed from the 1993 World Series run and still searching for direction. The Braves had moved from the NL West into the Phillies\u2019 division before the strike-shortened 1994 season, changing the shape of the East.<\/p>\n
As part of that realignment, Philadelphia was given the 1996 All-Star Game.<\/p>\n
The mighty Braves arrived as reigning World Series champions.<\/p>\n
The lowly Phillies arrived with one All-Star.<\/p>\n
Ricky Bottalico.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the biggest thing that everybody takes out of it,\u201d Bottalico said. \u201cIt was a Phillies team that, let\u2019s face it, we struggled, and to not have more than one All-Star was, it wasn\u2019t embarrassing, but it was just one of those things where, like, we\u2019re the home team. We got one All-Star.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Bottalico, now a longtime NBC Sports Philadelphia analyst and 97.5 The Fanatic host, that week was not some clean, glossy baseball memory.<\/p>\n
It was strange. It was loud. It was hot. It was packed with Hall of Famers.<\/p>\n
And again, he was the only one wearing Phillies red pinstripes.<\/p>\n
Ironically, that spotlight also meant Bottalico spent the week wearing six or seven microphones while hosting one of baseball\u2019s signature shows.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was actually hosting This Week in Baseball,\u201d Bottalico said. \u201cI was miced up like you would not believe.\u201d<\/p>\n
This Week in Baseball, which returned this year, had been legendary broadcaster Mel Allen\u2019s show from its start in 1977 until Allen\u2019s death in June 1996, less than a month before the All-Star Game. For a generation of baseball fans, it was part of the Saturday routine.<\/p>\n
Bottalico was one of those kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was a little kid, there were two shows on before the national game of the week,\u201d Bottalico said. \u201cAnd then, right before the game, they always had This Week in Baseball. So every Saturday, if I didn\u2019t have a game, I was sitting down watching it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The TV side was not random, either. Not looking back.<\/p>\n
Bottalico sat in front of another legend, Harry Kalas, and former pitcher Larry Andersen, still the Phillies\u2019 radio color commentator, on team flights. Kalas saw something before Bottalico did.<\/p>\n
\u201cHarry used to tell me, \u2018You\u2019re gonna get into the media after you\u2019re done,\u2019\u201d Bottalico said. \u201cAnd I\u2019d be like, \u2018I don\u2019t know, Harry, we\u2019ll see.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Kalas had his reason.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou got the voice for it,\u201d Bottalico remembered him saying.<\/p>\n
In 1996, that future had not arrived yet. Bottalico was still the Phillies\u2019 closer, still trying to make sense of being the only player from the home team in the home All-Star Game.<\/p>\n
That hit him inside the clubhouse, where his home-park locker had been moved.<\/p>\n
\u201cI walked into the clubhouse, and the first people I see in the clubhouse are all the Braves playing cards in our locker room,\u201d Bottalico said. \u201cI\u2019m like, this is wild. I mean, this is nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n
He knew what waited after the break.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn\u2019t feel the same because you knew that in a couple days you\u2019re going to hate these guys again,\u201d Bottalico said.<\/p>\n
The Home Run Derby did not make the job feel any easier.<\/p>\n
Barry Bonds beat Mark McGwire in the final. Bottalico had a front-row view as TWIB\u2019s wired-up host.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was wild,\u201d Bottalico said. \u201cYou gotta understand, it was hot too, I remember. And it was like one of those things where these guys were just hitting monstrous home runs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watching that much power up close was not exactly comforting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was absolutely the most ridiculous thing I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d Bottalico said. \u201cJust to watch those guys take batting practice, it was almost like, I don\u2019t want to watch this. I gotta pitch to these guys in a couple weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The names around him look different now than they did then.<\/p>\n
Pedro Martinez. Future wrestling-mate Barry Bonds. Mark McGwire. Cal Ripken Jr. Ozzie Smith, playing in his final All-Star Game.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the time, it probably wasn\u2019t as special because I was there,\u201d Bottalico said. \u201cI was already in the big leagues. But you realize how awesome that was.\u201d<\/p>\n
When his name was called and the roar came down, Bottalico removed his cap, as most players do, and flashed a small message tucked under the bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cHi Gram.\u201d<\/p>\n
His family was at Veterans Stadium. His fianc\u00e9e\u2019s family was there, too. His grandmother was not in attendance.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was the only one that couldn\u2019t make it down because she was older,\u201d Bottalico said. \u201cI just wanted her to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The introductions came with a soundtrack only Philadelphia could provide. Joe Carter was booed for his ’93 heroics over the Phillies. Ozzie Smith received a massive ovation. Bottalico knew his would be different, too.<\/p>\n
It was deafening.<\/p>\n
Some Phillies teammates watched it from the seats. Shortstop Kevin Stocker was there, the only game he ever attended as a player, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know Mickey Morandini was there, too,\u201d Bottalico said. \u201cQuite a few guys that were actually there and that had to be strange for them. I mean, they\u2019re watching a game that they\u2019re normally involved in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was nice to have teammates that were there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once the game started, another oddity waited.<\/p>\n
Ripken had broken his nose during team pictures after White Sox reliever Roberto Hernandez slipped and hit him with an elbow. In Iron Man fashion, Ripken still started.<\/p>\n
Bottalico faced him in the fifth inning, fully aware of what he did not want to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely would have pitched him differently if it was regular season,\u201d Bottalico said. \u201cMy whole theory was, I don\u2019t want to be the goat that hits him here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The thought made sense. Ripken\u2019s consecutive-games streak had already passed Lou Gehrig\u2019s record.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guy\u2019s playing with a broken nose, for crying out loud,\u201d Bottalico said.<\/p>\n
Bottalico got Ripken to pop out. He also struck out Ivan Rodriguez in a scoreless fifth.<\/p>\n
His entrance is the part he still hears, though.<\/p>\n
The Vet had a high wall near the bullpen that dipped lower as pitchers came toward first base. As Bottalico came in, he could see the crowd rise section by section.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like a wave,\u201d Bottalico said. \u201cThat got pretty loud.\u201d<\/p>\n
Someone in the bullpen, Bottalico believes it may have been Al Leiter, told him to take it in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember just kind of taking it in as I was jogging in,\u201d Bottalico said. \u201cIt was pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was Bottalico\u2019s moment.<\/p>\n
The night\u2019s postcard belonged to the local kid.<\/p>\n
Mike Piazza, the Norristown native and Dodgers catcher, turned Veterans Stadium into his stage. He caught a ceremonial first pitch from Mike Schmidt, his childhood hero, then hit a mammoth upper-deck homer and added an RBI double in the National League\u2019s 6-0 win. The NL would not win the All-Star Game again until 2010.<\/p>\n
Bottalico knew Piazza, another future teammate, had his own local pull that week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were a lot of questions about it, because I was obviously in Philly, and he was the other one that had a connection to Philly,\u201d Bottalico said. \u201cIt was definitely public knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n
The homer stuck with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat ball in the All-Star Game, he hit that, like, four rows deep, and it was more towards [left] center field in the upper deck,\u201d Bottalico said. \u201cThis was monstrous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piazza was asked afterward if he could have dreamed up that kind of homecoming.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know about living it,\u201d Piazza said on NBC\u2019s postgame broadcast, \u201cbut I definitely dreamt it.\u201d<\/p>\n
One seat in Bottalico\u2019s section came with its own coincidental souvenir.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy uncle, in the seats that I got them, actually got a Mike Piazza foul ball,\u201d Bottalico said.<\/p>\n
Wild.<\/p>\n
Nearly three decades later, Citizens Bank Park is finally getting its first All-Star Game. Bottalico still cannot quite believe it took this long.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s amazing,\u201d Bottalico said. \u201cIt is something.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is another difference this time.<\/p>\n
The 1996 Phillies had one All-Star. This year\u2019s team has six.<\/p>\n
Bottalico\u2019s pregame routine looks different now. The warmup comes with an IFB in an NBC Sports Philadelphia office, not a baseball in a bullpen.<\/p>\n
But in some ways, that week foreshadowed the second act Harry Kalas once predicted for him.<\/p>\n
The baseball part still matters most.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me,\u201d Ricky Bo said, \u201cit\u2019s something that I was the sole representative for the Phillies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thirty years ago, the All-Star Game returned to South Philadelphia for the first time since the bicentennial. 1996…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,97024],"class_list":["post-241556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-phillies-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}