I saw Billy Pierce outduel Frank Sullivan, 6-0, in 1960 at Fenway in 1:57 minutes. Fastest game I ever saw. Pierce had four hits and four strikeouts. I was 12 and my brother was 11 and we rode 12 miles on the trolley from Newton and Brighton, paid 5 cents each way.
I noticed the article mentioned Billy Pierce his career stats are amost idntical to Jim Bunning. Yet he is not in the Hall of Fame.Billy Pierce and Jim Bunning finished with identical earned run averages . . . but Bunning has a slightly better WHIP (walks/hits per inning pitched) ratio and a lot more black ink in his lifetime stats than Pierce did. It's possible, too, that Hall of Fame voters took note of Pierce once leading his league in losses without enough big seasons (or league-leading wins seasons) to offset it, but I don't know for sure. It's also possible that voters were more impressed by Bunning's strikeouts than Pierce's (Bunning has over 100 strikeouts more and led his league in strikeouts three times---all with 200+ punchouts---compared to Pierce doing it once and with under 200 punchouts).
I think, too, that voters were more impressed with Jim Bunning's gray ink (finishing top ten in league leaderships) than Billy Pierce's. Pierce was an excellent pitcher who fell just short of a Hall of Fame berth, though not by much, and one considers that it took a long time and a lot of review and re-review before people were truly convinced about Jim Bunning as a Hall of Famer. I'm not about to make a case one way or the other involving Billy Pierce, but he was an excellent pitcher.