Posted on 05/25/2002 8:05:25 PM PDT by BluesDuke
The late Bart Giamatti, far too briefly the commissioner of baseball, understood the essence of his sport better than most people. ``It breaks your heart,'' he wrote. ``It is meant to break your heart.''
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There have been 16 perfect games pitched in baseball history, each of them discussed in James Buckley Jr.'s new book, ``Perfect.'' The roster includes Hall of Famers such as Cy Young and Catfish Hunter and one-shot marvels like Len Barker and Mike Witt, each of them going 27 up, 27 down in one magical game.
Then, in the back of the book, come the near-misses. The heartbreakers include Hooks Wiltse, who retired 26 in a row and then hit the opposing pitcher to spoil his bid. Don't forget Pedro Martinez, who zipped through 27 straight but was locked in a scoreless game and gave up a hit to the 28th hitter, leading off the 10th inning.
Poor Brian Holman, Billy Pierce, Milt Wilcox and Mike Mussina -- each perfect for 26 batters, each nicked for a hit by No. 27. Milt Pappas got the first 26 but walked the last man.
And then there was Haddix.
A smallish left-hander, who won 20 games in his first full season with the St. Louis Cardinals, Haddix was becoming something of a journeyman with stops in Philadelphia and Cincinnati before surfacing in Pittsburgh in 1959. He would go a mediocre 12-12 that year, but one of the losses was special.
On a rainy night in Milwaukee, Haddix went out to face the Braves, a powerful lineup that included sluggers like Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews, a team that had won two straight National League pennants.
Haddix handled them with ease, 1-2-3, inning after inning. After three or four innings of that, a buzz began in the ballpark and people wondered how long it would go on. In Haddix's case, it just went on and on.
``He fell behind 3-1 on Mathews in the first inning,'' teammate Dick Groat said. ``It was the only batter he was behind all night. Harvey knew how to pitch. His control was magnificent. Not too many balls were hit hard, I promise you.''
``He had good stuff,'' the Braves' Felix Mantilla said. ``He was not a Sandy Koufax but he was around the plate all his life. He had good control and he kept us off balance.''
As Haddix kept mowing them down, the buzz spread to the dugouts.
``From the third inning on, nobody on the bench said anything,'' Groat remembered.
``We knew we were in trouble around the fifth inning,'' Mantilla said. ``We were doing nothing. Then the sixth, seventh, eighth. We could tell we were in pretty deep against him.''
There was one small problem. While Haddix was running through the Braves' lineup, the Pirates were getting plenty of hits but no runs against Milwaukee starter Lew Burdette.
``It was amazing,'' Mantilla said. ``Burdette was giving up hits every inning but they didn't score.''
So it was still 0-0 when Haddix trudged out for the ninth inning. Again, he breezed through, striking out Burdette for the 27th out of what ordinarily would have been a perfect game.
But there was one small, missing detail. The Pirates had neglected to score and the duel continued, with Haddix perfect through the 10th, 11th and 12th, and Pittsburgh still scoreless against Burdette.
Mantilla led off the bottom of the 13th and was quickly in a two-strike hole. After barely missing with the next pitch, Haddix handcuffed the batter. Mantilla hit an easy grounder to third baseman Don Hoak.
Maybe the ball was wet. Maybe Hoak rushed the play. Whatever the reason, the throw skipped past first baseman Rocky Nelson. After 36 batters, the Braves had a runner. The perfect game was over, broken up by Hoak's error.
Mathews sacrificed Mantilla to second and Aaron was intentionally walked. Next came Joe Adcock. Haddix had struck him out twice on inside sliders but this time he made a mistake, his first mistake all night, leaving a slider high in the zone.
Adcock jumped on it for what should have been a three-run homer. As Mantilla scored, Aaron cut across the diamond to celebrate the unlikely victory with his teammates and Adcock was ruled out for passing him between second and third.
Officially, Adcock was credited with a double and Haddix had a 13-inning one-hitter and a singular spot in Giamatti's heartbreak Hall of Fame.
Years later, Groat was traded to the Phillies where ex-Brave Bob Buhl was on the pitching staff.
``He was in the center field bullpen the night Harvey pitched that game,'' Groat said. ``He told me he stole the signs, called every pitch. If he showed a white towel, it was a fastball. If he didn't, it was a breaking ball.
``That proves the theory good pitching stops good hitting.''
Even if the good hitters know what's coming.
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updated at Sat May 25 11:51:26 2002 PT
I did a quick search and found this just now to refresh my memory:
September 2nd, 1972: Milt Pappas of the Cubs hurls a no-hit game in beating the Padres 8-0. Pappas has a perfect game until PH Larry Stahl walks with 2 outs in the 9th inning. Pappas and C Randy Hundley both said of the pitches to Stahl, "They were so close I don't know how Stahl could take them, but they were balls."
Let's see, I was at several no-hitters in person--Kenny (best-Jewish-lefty-since-Koufax) Holtzman, Milt (The Mammas and the) Pappas, Burt Hooton (and Hollerin'). Have seen several more no-nos on TV--recently for the Cards, (My Name) Jose Jimenez and Bud (Light) Smith.
There have been 16 perfect games pitched in baseball history, each of them discussed in James Buckley Jr.'s new book, ``Perfect.'' The roster includes Hall of Famers such as Cy Young and Catfish Hunter and one-shot marvels like Len Barker and Mike Witt, each of them going 27 up, 27 down in one magical game.I saw Lenny Barker's perfect game on live TV (I almost went....grrrr). Most incredible thing I've ever seen. He struck out two of the three batters in each of the 4th through 8th innings and never went to three balls on a hitter the entire game.
-Eric
I've seen a video of Barker's game. It was indeed a jewel.I've been looking for a copy for years.
One thing I always found intriguing: Nolan Ryan pitched seven no-hitters in his career but never a perfect game. Most punctuative perfect game: Sandy Koufax - it was his fourth no-hitter, in the fourth consecutive season in which he threw a no-hit, no-run game, and, as an early Koufax biographer described it, it proved that practise makes perfect. To say nothing of it being a) his 22nd win of the season (he would finish with 26 wins in 1965), and b) pitched down the pennant stretch.To me the most bizarre non-perfect game was a game I did go to, where Dick Bosman no-hit the Oakland A's in July of 1974. He only missed a perfect game because of a throwing error....made by himself.
This was a month and a half after the infamous "10 cent Beer Night". Which was the first game in Cleveland for a Texas Rangers rookie named Mike Hargrove.
-Eric
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