So, the All-Star Game last night was a disappointment. It was a 8-0 drubbing of the AL, led by the NL’s Ryan Braun and the Giants contingent. It had it’s moments: the KC fans giving Chipper Jones a big round of applause, giving Billy Butler the largest applause he ever has and probably ever will be given, Trout and Harper making their debuts, the first bases-loaded triple in All-Star history. But in general, it was something of a bore, one of the least entertaining All-Star Games in memory.

But was it the worst All-Star Game? Well, no, at least it had a clear winner, and it wasn’t cut short by rain.  But what about of the non-ties? Well, looking at other blow-outs…

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The worst ASG in history, as far as the players who were in it, was probably the 1944 game. It’s not hard to see why: most of the players were off to war. Bobby Doerr and Stan Musial were there, Hal Newhouser made a relief appearance, and the getting-up-there-in-years Mel Ott and Joe Medwick made appearances off the bench, but there were few others that the modern baseball fan would recognize, as the NL cruised to a 7-1 victory. By 1945, even more of the top players had entered the military, and that, along with rationing and travel considerations, led to that year’s ASG just being scrapped.

The 1946 All-Star Game was a 12-0 beatdown by the AL at Fenway Park, but it did have Ted Williams going 4-for-4 with two homers and five RBIs, including his historic home run off Rip Sewell’s “Eephus Pitch”, so I think it’s safe to say that probably wasn’t the worst non-tie ASG.

The second All-Star Game in 1960 was a 6-0 NL victory, but it did have a bunch of future inner-circle Hall of Famers, and wasn’t 8-0, so I think it probably was better than last night’s ASG.

1983 was 13-3 for the AL, and has several parallels to the 2012 ASG. It became a blow-out early on, it was the final All-Star Game for a future HOFer (several in 1983: Johnny Bench, Carl Yastrzemski and Robin Yount [who had the misfortune of being a SS in the AL during the age of Cal Ripken]) and it had a St. Louis manager for the NL (Whitey Herzog). And it was a bigger blowout than even last night, so it’s a definite contender.

1996 was, before last night, the last time there had been a shut-out, as the NL defeated the AL 6-0 in Philadelphia. Ken Griffey, Tony Gwynn and Frank Thomas missed it with injuries. Cal Ripken got his nose broken during the team picture. Sammy Sosa and ace set-up man Mariano Rivera were snubbed (wow, reading old newspaper reports about All-Star Games bring up some interesting things). In hindsight, one of the worst.

Finally, there is the All-Star Game that I most remember as being bad before last night: 2004, when Roger Clemens got slammed for 6 runs in the first inning. Still, at least the NL scored… which was more than the AL had last night.