July 2, 1963 - Bitter first baseman Dick Stuart, his one-day benching by Red Sox manager Johnny Pesky lifted, lashed out today at his omission from the American League All-Star squad. The Boston Record-American quoted Stuart as saying: “It’s tough to have a third-string catcher like Ralph Houk keep you off the All-Star team. He never made one in his life. All he ever did was sit in the dugout. He got into the All-Star game himself because Casey Stengel got fired, and they made him manager of the Yankees.” Stuart came in second in the player voting for first base behind the Yankees’ Joe Pepitone. Dick has the most runs batted in, 50, and the most homers among first basemen, 17. “Even Pepitone himself thought I should have made it,” Stuart continued. “He said in New York this weekend he thought I would win the election. Losing the election was one thing. But when Houk didn’t name me, I really have a complaint. I wanted to make the team badly, and I feel terrible. I’m going to tell Houk exactly what I think of him when I see him. Monday was a bad day for me all around. First I find out I’m not on the All-Star team, then I get benched for making an error.” In New York, Houk explained his omission of Stuart: “There is a rule demanding every team in the league have at least one representative on the team. I try to follow the voting as much as possible, but sometimes I have to depart from that to fill the squad. That was the case with Stuart. I picked Norm Siebern as the Kansas City player because he can play the outfield as well as first base, and he is a good pinch hitter.” “It’s a distasteful job,” Houk added, “because somebody is always going to ask you why you didn’t pick so-and-so over so-and-so.”
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