On This Day In Baseball History....

Sorry this got out late; hope you enjoy no matter what day it is

I saw an excellent article in Sunday's New York Times sports page about the "perfect" game Harvey Haddix pitched in 1959. In fact, it was 50 years ago today that Harvey Haddix (pitching for Pittsburgh) took a perfect game into the 13th inning!! In fact his opposing pitcher, Lew Burdette also pitched into the 13th inning as well (scattering 12 hits over his 13 innings)!! Of course you would never ever see something like that nowadays. But baseball was much different back then.

The sad thing about that game was that someone had to lose. 12 scoreless innings by both starting pitchers. The Braves were the opponents for the Pirates this day in 1959. The same Braves team who won the two previous National League pennants. These were the days of Aaron, Matthews, Spahn. So the fact that Haddix had pitched 12 perfect innings against this team (or any team for that matter) was truly amazing. We also have the Pirates, who would win in 1960. In a sense, you had what was past against was going to be. But of course no one knew that at the time!! Unfortunately bad luck and game circumstances in the unlucky 13th inning proved to be Haddix' undoing and the one and only hit led the only run scored this day.

Because baseball is weird about its records, this special game is never considered as a no hitter or a perfect game. Perfect games and no hitters nowadays are considered such if the game is nine complete innings (and finished). No 5, 6 or 7 inning no hitters. While Haddix technically pitched 9 perfect innings, the game was not over. Haddix will always get special consideration for his accomplishment, but sadly his perfection unravelled in that fateful 13th inning.

Of course back in those days, no one would have known about the game or had live look-ins as the game as developing. Can you imagine what we could have seen? I'm sure on a local level, maybe the game was televised. But I doubt it. As I said before, the game was different then. I'm not sure if anyone but the most devoted fans would have noticed the boxscore the next day (or following day even, depending on newspaper deadlines).

Anyway, it made me feel that perhaps baseball has lost its way with all of the overpaid, overblown and over pampered players of today. On this day in 1959, 2 pitchers and 2 teams battled out for 13 tough innings...both pitchers finished what they started. And made their next starts. That's what baseball was then and should be today.

On this day in 1959 was when baseball witnessed perhaps the best individual performance ever. Relish and remember the memory...

Thanks to baseball reference.com, here's a link to the boxscore of this famous game:http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MLN/MLN195905260.shtml

JP