Author Scott Reich has released a book detailing a 1917 charity baseball game that served as a precursor to the MLB All-Star Game.
The account provides a historical link between early 20th-century sports philanthropy and the official league structures that define professional baseball today. By examining the social and athletic motivations of the era, the narrative highlights how a single community event influenced the sport's global tradition.
In his book, "One Day in September: Baseball, Brotherhood, and the Birth of the All-Star Game," Reich recounts a specific event held at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts [1]. The game took place in 1917 [1]. It was not a league-sanctioned event but was instead organized as a fundraiser for the family of Tim Murnane [1]. Murnane was a former player and executive who served as a baseball writer for the Boston Globe [1].
This gathering of talent at Fenway Park demonstrated the appeal of seeing the game's best players compete on a single field for a cause. While the 1917 event was a localized charity effort, it established a conceptual blueprint for the league's later efforts to showcase its stars in a non-regular season format.
MLB eventually formalized this concept on a national scale decades later. The first official MLB All-Star Game occurred on July 6, 1933 [2]. That inaugural official contest was held at Comiskey Park in Chicago [2].
Reich said the Boston event had historical significance in a recent interview with Jeffrey Brown [3]. The author emphasizes the theme of brotherhood, and the collective effort to support a colleague's family through the sport they all shared [3]. The book argues that the spirit of the 1917 game provided the essential spark for the tradition that now defines the baseball calendar.
“The 1917 game was organized as a fundraiser for the family of Tim Murnane”
The connection between the 1917 charity game and the 1933 official All-Star Game suggests that MLB's most famous exhibition was not a spontaneous corporate invention, but an evolution of grassroots sports philanthropy. By tracing the origin to a benefit for a journalist's family, the history emphasizes the role of the press and community bonds in shaping professional sports traditions.
