star gazing
Mississippi native Dave Parker won the very first MLB Home Run Derby, held in 1985 at the Metrodome in Minnesota in conjunction with the All-Star Game. Parker was with Cincinnati at the time and in the 13th of his 19 big league seasons, during which he belted 339 home runs, second all-time to Vicksburg’s Ellis Burks (352) among Mississippi natives. In the ’85 derby, Parker hit six bombs in his two, five-out “innings,” beating a field that included Eddie Murray, Jim Rice and Dale Murphy. The revamped (yet again) derby is slated for tonight at the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati. … Brian Dozier is the first Mississippi native to make the All-Star Game since Roy Oswalt was picked for the National League squad in 2007. Dozier, who was born in Tupelo and went to Itawamba AHS in Fulton before starring at Southern Miss, is in Cincinnati as an injury replacement pick, but the Minnesota second baseman certainly is having an All-Star-worthy season. He has 19 homers, 50 RBIs and 67 runs for the second-best team in the American League. Oswalt, from Weir, made three straight Midsummer Classics for Houston starting in 2005. … Ex-Mississippi State star Jonathan Papelbon, who has made six All-Star Games, was the winning pitcher in the 2009 game at St. Louis. Then with Boston, Papelbon pitched a clean seventh inning with the score tied 3-3. Adam Jones’ sac fly in the eighth put the AL stars ahead, and they won 4-3. Papelbon is now with Philadelphia and on the NL roster. … The most memorable of the four previous All-Star Games to be held in Cincinnati would have to be the 1970 contest, which ended when Reds star Pete Rose crushed Ray Fosse at home plate with two outs in the 12th inning and scored the winning run for the National League. Yazoo City native Jerry Moses was on the AL team but didn’t play in his only trip to the Midsummer Classic. However, had Rose been out at the plate – the throw actually beat him, but Fosse couldn’t hold the ball after the collision — and the game extended, Moses likely would have replaced the injured Fosse at catcher. The AL’s only other catcher was Bill Freehan, who had started and departed the game. Moses hit .263 with six homers for Boston in 1970, the only season of his nine in MLB in which he got more than 200 at-bats. The Red Sox were one of seven teams Moses played for.