The KC Royals have hosted 2 of city’s 3 All-Star Games

Last season, the KC Royals had two players crack the 2021 All-Star roster in Salvador Perez and Whit Merrifield. The game, played in Colorado, marked the eighth straight victory for the American League.

The last time the National League won was in 2012, the second time the Royals hosted the annual competition. They first welcomed the All Stars in 1973 during the inaugural season for Royals (now Kauffman) Stadium. And the Kansas City Athletics hosted the Midsummer Classic at old Municipal Stadium in 1960.

The Athletics were the first Kansas City team to host the MLB All-Star Game.

Although the 28th MLB All-Star Game was played July 11, 1960, Kansas City wasn’t the only All-Star venue that year—the 29th Game took place at Yankee Stadium just two days later. From 1959-1962, the American and National Leagues played two All-Star Games per season. The reason was simple—per an agreement with the Major League Baseball Players Association, second game profits went to the players’ pension fund.

Kansas City’s 1960 game featured a plethora of baseball greats and future Hall of Famers, including Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, and Al Kaline, just to name a few.

Mays led off for the National League with a triple. Bob Skinner knocked him in with a single, and Banks smashed a home run to propel the NL to a 3-0 lead in the first inning.

The American League couldn’t muster anything against starting pitcher Bob Friend of the Pirates, who notched two strikeouts and surrendered just one hit through the first three innings. By the time the AL mounted a comeback with Nellie Fox’s RBI single in the sixth and Kaline’s two-run homer in the seventh, it was too late as the National League came out on top 5-3.