Yet Even More Uncounted Perfect Games

As my AC writing colleague and fellow Phils fan, Rick Soisson, pointed out in his recent article on the subject, Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga recently and unjustly lost a rare perfect game, not so much from umpire error as from the hidebound attitude of major league baseball.

While I commend that article to your rapt attention, I want to take this opportunity to highlight three other perfect games that failed to get the recognition due them, not at all through umpire misjudgment, but certainly through a callous attitude on the part of baseball's powers-that-be.

That said, it was alleged umpire misjudgment that both caused a taint to be associated with the first of these three games and, at the same time, enabled it to happen.

On June 23, 1917, the Boston Red Sox were playing the Washington Senators. Boston's starting pitcher was Babe Ruth. Washington's first batter, Ray Morgan, worked Ruth for a walk, much to the lefthander's immense displeasure. So immense was Ruth's displeasure, in fact, that he beefed hard enough to umpire Brick Owens to get himself ejected from the game. Probably with some reluctance, Red Sox manager Jack Barry brought in his second choice to pitch the game, Ernie Shore, who had been purchased as an afterthought when Boston bought Ruth from the minor league Baltimore Orioles.

As a first order of business, catcher Pinch Thomas threw out the Senators' runner in an attempted steal. Since base-runners are said to steal off the pitcher, as well as the catcher, Shore had a de-facto assist on the play.

Despite never having been what we would think of as a "power" pitcher (He had only 309 strikeouts in his entire career.), Shore retired the next 26 batters in order. While this has to be considered the greatest relief-pitching stint of all time, it is not considered a perfect game, or even a complete game-despite all 27 batters having been retired while Shore was pitching. Babe Ruth did not help Shore in any way; he only hindered him.

The most recent of the three happened to Pedro Martinez of the Montreal Expos (now the Washington Nationals). On June 3, 1995, Martinez pitched a perfect nine innings against the San Diego Padres. The only problem was that his team had failed to provide him with so much as one run, so the game had to go into extra innings.

This ruined perfect game had somewhat of a happy ending, though. While Martinez did cough up a hit in the tenth, his teammates finally got up off their dead behinds and got him a run, so he did win the game.

In the matter of extra-inning games, baseball has mechanisms in place to segregate the required nine innings from the rest of the game. If a pitcher goes the full nine innings, then is removed at some point in the overtime for whatever reason, he is still credited with a complete game. I do not see why the same principal should not apply to the recognition of a perfect game. As the colorful pitcher Bobo Newsome said about no-hitters of any kind, "They don't grow in bunches, like bananas," so they deserve to be acknowledged and recognized when they happen.

The second of these three incidents was a lot like the third, only moreso. It must have been the most frustrating experience in a team sport for any player in the history of athletic competition.

On May 26, 1959, lefthander Harvey Haddix of the Pittsburgh Pirates faced the Milwaukee Braves. He retired every one of them, without allowing a base-runner of any kind, through nine, ten, eleven, then twelve perfect innings. That's twelve with a "t."

The reason he was pitching for all those innings was that his teammates, though they had nicked Braves' starter Lew Burdette for a dozen hits, had not managed to get a man across the plate.

In the thirteenth, Haddix lost his perfect game through an infield error, then, one out later, lost the shutout and the game through an actual hit. Keep in mind that the Pirates' lefthander had not performed this heroic feat against the moribund Cubs or the hopeless Phillies, but the League champion Milwaukee Braves-a hard-hitting team that would go on to finish tied for first place that season. They lost a playoff to the Los Angeles Dodgers, but, the point is, they were no easy mark for Haddix to pick on.

What was even more remarkable about the unfortunate incident was that the Pittsburgh Pirates, during the three-year period from 1958 through 1960 were, without the shadow of a doubt, the best team in the majors at coming from behind and winning in the clutch. They were never all that overpowering, but, when the chips went down, they always seemed to be the ones raking them in.

In the year Harvey Haddix lost his perfect game, the Pirates' principal relief pitcher, a slightly better-than-average fellow named Elroy Face, won an astounding 18 games, with only one loss. If you stop to think about it, you don't win games pitching in relief unless your team was behind or, at best, tied when you come in to the game.

Yet, on that one day, when it really counted, the team didn't have what it took to get the job done.

I remember the following morning at school, in Maryland and nowhere near the city of Pittsburgh, after we got through the usual school sports announcements, the teacher reading them off finished by expressing the school's deep sympathy for Harvey Haddix.

There is somewhat of a happy note, even for poor old Harvey. He and his team got into the World Series the following season, in which he won two games to help the Pirates to their first world championship in 35 years.

Sources

The Fireside Book of Baseball

Wikipedia

Rick Soisson, Associated Content

baseball-almanac.com