Posted on 05/25/2010 3:36:04 AM PDT by ICAB9USA
Fifty years ago Harvey Haddix threw 12 perfect innings—more than any pitcher before or since—and then lost.
How the unassuming lefty's brilliant effort turned bittersweet.
_______
HARVEY HADDIX stepped onto the rain-softened mound and exhaled. It was May 26, 1959, nearing 10 o'clock on a muggy night in half-empty Milwaukee County Municipal Stadium. Dark clouds loomed overhead in the windswept sky, lightning flickered in the distance. There were two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, and the Pittsburgh Pirates lefthander tugged at the bill of his black cap, glared at his catcher from underneath and nodded. Not one player on the field had said anything to him that even hinted at what he was on the verge of accomplishing. Later, when Haddix stepped up to bat, Milwaukee Braves catcher Del Crandall would break the silence and state the obvious: "Hey, you're pitching a pretty good game."
All night long Haddix's head had been foggy from a nasty cold and all the lozenges he'd been popping in between innings, but he was well aware he had a no-hitter going—he couldn't ignore all the white zeros on the scoreboard below the COME TO MARLBORO COUNTRY sign beyond right centerfield. Haddix thought he had walked a batter earlier in the game, but he hadn't.
Facing one of the National League's most feared lineups, the 33-year-old was one out away from pitching the seventh perfect game in major league history. By now radio stations across the country, as far west as Los Angeles, as far east as North Carolina, had picked up the broadcast of KDKA in Pittsburgh. Just outside Springfield, Ohio, Haddix's wife, Marcia, sat in the family car in her mother's driveway and listened to static-filled radio play-by-play.
(Excerpt) Read more at sportsillustrated.cnn.com ...
Yes, yes, yes.
I still listen to Dick do the Pitt basketball games. He's getting a little old, his delivery is a little slow, but NO ONE know much more about basketball (and baseball) than Dick Groat. (I think I remember him going 6 for 6 against some team back in the old days. I seem to remember that nearly every one of those singles was slapped up the middle or elsewhere through the infield. Groat was a very smart fellow.
(By the way... Groat did not play in the Harvey Haddix Greatest Game --- Dick just handed Harvey his between inning smokes..... see post # 3)
LOL
Yes sir.
And don't forget Kirk Gibson hitting that homerun when he nearly could not walk.
lol
I listened on WWVA which came in very well after sundown on Long Island. Les Keiter must have been doing one of his Giant recreation broadcasts, because I seen to remember that he gave updates on the Haddix game. Otherwise I would have had no reason to tune into WWVA that night. (I mostly only listened when the Giants were plying the Pirates.)
ML/NJ
You were a lucky fellow to be in on that incredible night of sports/baseball history. I will never forget my/Pittsburgh Pirates' announcer calling that game. Bob Prince was brilliant. "The Gunner" (Prince) was a real homer, but a totally brilliant renderer of the action during a baseball game.
I will never forget how he described the late-inning thunder and lightning in the sky out past the centerfield fence that seemed to threaten the end of the game.
Anyhow.............. I knew Harvey Haddix. He was a solid little wiry and very strong farmer from Ohio. He also was an incredible artist on the mound.
As Stan Musial said years ago ........ (and I paraphrase)
Harvey Haddix was a great pitcher. If the powerful hitter, Joe Adcock, of the Milwaukee Braves had not caromed a line drive off his knee in 1954.......... he may have been a Hall of Famer. Musial, a very intelligent man, went on to say that the injury to Harvey's leg altered his delivery to the plate.
Harvey Haddix was a great pitcher and a great man.
I hope you read the entire article. If you did you would see:
"After the game, Haddix received many letters of congratulations and support, as well as one from a fraternity which read, in its entirety, "Dear Harv, tough shit."
"It made me mad," recounted Haddix, "until I realized they were right.
That's exactly what it was."
______________
Harvey Haddix was a man.
You beat me to it. Far out, man. The Doctor was in his groove.
"It made me mad," recounted Haddix, "until I realized they were right.
That's exactly what it was."
Bwahahahahaha!!!!
*****GREAT VIDEO******
“in the mist....” Ha!
LOL...glad you posted that link so I wouldn’t have to :-)
ML/NJ
Prince was a character. He was ..... in his youger days ............ a guy who went to some private schools as a swimer and a diver.
Nevertheless........... supposedly one evening in St Louis ,........... he got wasted (not to unusual) and bet all his buddies that he could don't dive into a hotel swimming pool ..... about six floors down.
Bob Prince was a good man.
Wasted as he was........... he did it.
By the way ...... (Bob took care of many people he knew who had serious medical problems.)
;-)
Not once did Haddix shake off his catcher; Burgess made just three visits to the mound. In fact Haddix barely uttered a word to anyone.Some pitchers are like that when they think they have a big one going like that. Others are a little more loosey-goose:
* When Jim Bunning sensed he had a shot at a perfect game on Father's Day in 1964, those who were there say he was as loose as it got, almost laughing and joking between innings. (In the seventh, he had reason to laugh and joke---by that time, the Shea Stadium crowd had done the unthinkable: they turned on the Mets and began rooting openly for Bunning to finish what it looked like he started, including giving him a standing ovation when he came up to hit in the seventh inning.)
* Mild-mannered, sober Sandy Koufax wasn't above a little dry humour in the middle of a no-no. It's said that when he was two-thirds of the way through his second such gem, against the Giants in 1963, he called John Roseboro, his catcher, to the mound, and said wryly, "Let's just feed them fastballs and get this no-hit thing over with."
* When Dennis Eckersley, then a Cleveland Indians starting pitcher, was an out away from finishing his no-hitter, he barked at the next batter in the on-deck circle: "Get in there and hit---you're the next out!"
* Back to the Koufax no-no against the Giants: Mindful of the tradition that you don't even utter the thought of a no-hitter (unless you're the pitcher who might pull it off, and even then), Giants broadcaster Russ Hodges absolutely refused to utter the phrase until Koufax nailed it. He came up with about a hundred ways to allude to what was happening without saying the words.
And, a classic from just after a pitcher has finished a no-hitter: When legendary pitcher-playboy Bo Belinsky nailed his no-no, his fourth straight major league win, the first question he fielded from the writers after the game was, "Bo, when did you first start thinking about a no-hitter?"
"This morning at five o'clock," Belinsky replied, deadpan.
It was a reference to his date the night before the game. The dear boys in the press had no idea what he was talking about.
Another classic: This sign was held up after Koufax pitched his first no-hitter, against the 1962 Mets: SANDY KOUFAX'S PERFECT GAME: 0-FOR-4, referencing Koufax's only too-well-known inability to hit. (For a guy who couldn't hit, however, his first major league home run was a beauty---he hit it off the same man who surrendered Willie Mays's first major league home run over a decade earlier, Hall of Famer Warren Spahn.)
The World Series almost runs into the WINTER now ! Into November again this year. One of these years they are going to be whited out by a blizzard. lolYou laugh, but once upon a time a game did get whited out by a blizzard of sorts---the New York Giants were waiting for the field to get swept after an unusual early April snow in the Polo Grounds, and the fans were even more restless than the players. They started snowball fights in the stands and it got so out of hand that the umps forfeited the game before it even got underway.
Bob Prince was brilliant. "The Gunner" (Prince) was a real homer, but a totally brilliant renderer of the action during a baseball game.;) I live in Las Vegas and play slots now and then. Whenever I get a bonus round playing a slot, I have a habit of bellowing out Prince's home run call: Open the window, Aunt Minnie, here she comes!
Great story, I had no idea.
Class act.
More seriously ....... whats with this "Korea" thing in the news?
Tijeras_Slim ...... please tell "onyx"...."hi". She always was one of my favorite young ladies here at FR.. Bless you and yours.
American in Tokyo’s posts are the place to look for info on Korea, brilliant stuff.
You take care, and I’ll see you on the forums. :)
I really do care that you noticed this story, Tijeras_Slim.
You are very consistent. You are always wise..... and one of the best individuals on this excellent forum, FR.
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