Sixty Years Ago, Johnny Callison Was An All-Star Hero

Johnny CallisonPhoto byRuss Walsh

By Russ Walsh

As I write this, Major League Baseball is in the 2024 All-Star break. The Philadelphia Phillies sent eight players to this year’s classic, tying an All-Star Game record. This is a wonderful accomplishment for a franchise that often had to rely on the “one player from each team rule” to place anybody on the team. In 1960, for example, second baseman Tony Taylor was the only Phillie named to the team, and he had only been a Phillies player for two months after coming over in a May 13 trade with the Chicago Cubs. Taylor singled sharply to center in the only All-Star at-bat of his 19-year career.

Sixty years ago, at the 1964 All-Star Game, however, a young Phillies outfielder named Johnny Callison hit a shot that, if it was not exactly “heard round the world,” certainly announced that it was a new day for Phillies baseball.

When the All-Star break came that year, the upstart Phillies, who had lost 107 games – including a Major League record 23 in a row – just three years earlier, were in first place in the National League. Two weeks prior, star Phillies pitcher Jim Bunning had pitched the first perfect game in the National League in 84 years. The Phillies had two All-Star pitchers on their staff, Bunning and Chris Short; they had everybody’s Rookie of the Year favorite, Dick Allen, at third base (Allen was inexplicably left off the All-Star team); and they had Callison, the quiet, introspective, 5-foot-9 five-tool player in right field.

Callison did not start the All-Star Game, which was played at the brand new Shea Stadium in New York City, but after he pinch-hit for teammate Jim Bunning in the fifth inning, popping out to shortstop, he replaced Roberto Clemente in right field. By the time Callison batted again in the seventh, the American League stars had taken a 4-3 lead on a sacrifice fly by California Angels shortstop Jim Fregosi.

Hoping to preserve the slim margin, AL manager Al Lopez brought in speedballer Dick “The Monster” Radatz of the Boston Red Sox to pitch. The 6-foot-6 Radatz was the dominant relief pitcher of the era. He threw Callison a low fastball and Callison flied out to Mickey Mantle in very deep right-center field.

The score remained 4-3 as Radatz held the NL stars in check. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Willie Mays walked to lead off the inning and promptly stole second base. Orlando Cepeda then got his first ever All-Star Game hit, a bloop single to right. Mays rounded third aggressively, drawing a throw from AL first baseman Joe Pepitone that bounced away, allowing Mays to score the tying run. Cepeda moved up to second. Curt Flood pinch-ran for Cepeda. Radatz got Ken Boyer, who had homered earlier, to pop out, walked lefty-hitting catcher Johnny Edwards intentionally, and whiffed pinch-hitter Henry Aaron.

That brought Callison up to the plate again. Callison later said, “I decided to switch to a lighter bat. I borrowed one from Billy Williams." The bat was a 32-ounce Louisville Slugger. After the game, Radatz said, “I pitched him low on the first at-bat and he got good wood on it, so I figured I’d pitch him high in the ninth. It didn’t work out too good.”

No, it did not. Here’s how Callison described what happened next.

He reared and threw me a high hard one … As soon as I swung, I thought it was a homer. You can just feel it — hear it! … I was on cloud nine as I rounded the bases. By the time I rounded second, I saw Radatz throw his glove into the dugout.

As he hopped on home plate, Callison ducked his head as teammates Aaron, Mays, Boyer, Clemente, Williams, and even first-base coach Casey Stengel rushed to congratulate him. Pictures of the moment show a smiling, diminutive looking Callison being mobbed by some of the behemoths of the game.

Photo byRuss Walsh

After the game, Callison told Jim McCulley of the New York Daily News, “I said to myself I was going to hit the first pitch he got over. He put it over on the inside corner and I was lucky to get hold of it.”

All-Star manager Walter Alston of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who had named Callison as a reserve on the team, said, “I think Johnny is one of the really great all-around players in our league. You might say I’m a Callison man. Because he can do anything there is to do on a ball field like a real pro.”

Chicago Cubs star Billy Williams, who loaned Callison that home run bat, still had the bat in his memorabilia collection 50 years later, because he hit a home run in the game with the same bat. That bat must be the only one in All-Star Game history to have hit two home runs by two different players. The bat now resides in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

For his big game heroics, Callison was named All-Star Game MVP. As he walked through the clubhouse with his MVP trophy after the game, a reporter yelled, “This looks like the Phillies’ year, John.” Callison replied happily, “It’s gotta be. It’s gotta be!”

Well, yes, it had to be, until it wasn’t, but that is a story for another day.

Russ Walsh is a retired teacher, baseball coach, and writer living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He is a lifelong and long-suffering Philadelphia Phillies fan. He writes for the Society for American Baseball Research and for MLBReport.com. You can contact him through X (formerly known as Twitter) at @faithofaphilli1.