More than 100 of Major League Baseball’s greatest players, past and present, rode on a red carpet up Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue in Chevy Flex–Fuel Silverados yesterday.
The prelude to last night’s MLB All-Star game in Yankee Stadium, the fourth such event of its kind, drew an enthusiastic crowd of baseball fans of teams in both leagues who lined the sidewalks on both sides of Sixth Avenue through the 18 blocks the parade covered. The baseball stars barely outnumbered the 110 Silverado pick-ups that shared the spotlight, ferrying them up the avenue in the Chevrolet-sponsored event.
But the fans’ attention was focused on the players, who waved and interacted with the fans. They signed baseballs thrown from the crowd, throwing them back to the fans as the procession lumbered along. The crowd was expected to exceed one million fans, but nobody was keeping score.
“Go Cubbies,” one fan yelled to Chicago Cubs’ Hall of Famer Billy Williams, who responded in kind with a thumbs-up.
“Greatest fans in the world,” an uncharacteristically exuberant former Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson said to reporters as he passed by.
The parade included a veritable Who’s Who of Hall of Fame ballplayers, including Hank Aaron, Yogi Berra, Bob Feller, Harmon Killebrew, Ferguson Jenkins, Juan Marichal, Luis Aparicio, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Orlando Cepeda, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Whitey Ford, Ryne Sandberg, Ozzie Smith, Dave Winfield and Rod Carew, among others.
They led the parade on the red carpet, followed by the American and National League All-Stars.
A group of local Boys & Girls Clubs baseball players followed a New York Police Department band at the head of the parade, which did not include New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was slated to attend the event.
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