6-6-64: Chance, Bouton in goose-egg stalemate

Los Angeles' Dean Chance, en route to a Cy Young Award-winning season in 1964, shut out New York on three hits over 14 innings on June 6 in a game won by the Yankees over the Angels, 2-0, in 15 innings.

After Game 3 of the 1964 World Series, Mickey Mantle displays the game-winning home run ball he hit off Barney Schultz in the bottom of the ninth. Jim Bouton, right, threw a complete game for the 2-1 win for the New York Yankees over the St. Louis Cardinals. Earlier that year, on June 6,  Bouton shut out Los Angeles over 13 innings in a game won by New York over the Angels 2-0. 

By Phil Ellenbecker 
  Juan Marichal and Warren Spahn hooked up in an epic pitching duel in San Francisco on July 2, 1963, in what was called "The Greatest Game Ever Pitched" in a book by Jim Kaplan. Marichal the upstart prevailed over Spahn the veteran, 1-0, in 16 innings on a Willie Mays home run.
  Almost one year later and six hours down the road, upstarts Dean Chance and Jim Bouton engaged in a similar marathon matchup of pitching wills, won by the Yankees 2-0 in 15 innings on June 6, 1964, in Los Angeles.
  Nobody's written any books about it, but Chance's mastery that day gets venerable baseball analyst Bill James' vote as the greatest pitching performance of the past 60 years according to his Game Scores points system. "A very remarkable game that absolutely nobody seems to remember," James wrote.
  Unlike the July 2, 1963, game at Candlestick Park when Marichal and Spahn stuck it out to the bittersweet end, Chance and Bouton, both right-handers, were both gone by the time this one was decided at Dodgers Stadium. (The new home the Dodgers moved into in 1962 was the Angels' borrowed home, after Wrigley Field, and before the Angels moved into "The Big A," Anaheim Stadium, in 1966.)
  After Chance yielded to Willie Smith at the start of the 15th, the Yankees broke the deadlock. With one out, Roger Maris scratched out a single to shortstop and was replaced on the bases by Joe Pepitone when Bill Stafford, who'd relieved Bouton starting the 14th, retired Maris at second on Peppy's grounder back to the mound. John Blanchard followed with a single to center field, putting runners at first and second.
  That brought on Dan Osinski for Smith, and Elston Howard, the 1963 American League MVP, delivered a two-run double to center. Clete Boyer was intentionally walked, and Stafford struck out,himself back out to the mound with a chance to finally end it. That he did by coaxing a pair of pop-ups to Tony Kubek at shortstop, by Lou Clinton and Ed Kirkpatrick, around a strikeout by Bob Rodgers.
  Chance, who five days earlier had turned age 23 and was in his third full season, pitched a three-hitter with 12 strikeouts and two walks in his 14 innings.
  Bouton, 25 and in his third season, wasn't nearly as tidy, allowing 10 hits and five walks while striking out five in his 13-inning stint.
  But true to his "Bulldog" nickname, Bouton worked around the base-path activity as the Angels left 12 men on bases against him.
  Meanwhile Chance, who would win the Cy Young Award that year at a time when only one was awarded for both leagues, was a mow 'em down machine with nine 1-2-3 innings. He had strings of 12 and 14 straight batters retired. He had a no-hitter through six innings and one-hitter through nine.

Elston Howard, shown with Yankees catcher predecessor Yogi Berra, belted a two-run double in the 15th inning on June 6, 1964, to give New York a 2-0 victory over the Los Angeles Angels. Berra, the Yankees manager that year, was ejected from the game for arguing a safe call at third base.

  Chance, a roommate and galavanting pal of fellow pitcher and noted playboy Bo Belinsky, struck out two batters apiece in the first two innings and then spotted a single K apiece in seven other frames, including five straight innings at one point. No. 3 hitter Tom Tresh whiffed three times. Howard and Clete Boyer struck out twice.
  Bobby Richardson, the American League's leader in at-bats per strikeout in 1964 and three times the league's toughest to strike out, fanned looking as the second batter up in the game, an indication of how "on" Chance was this day. Richardson struck out 36 times on the year.
  Breaking down Chance beyond the strikeouts, he got the Yankees to beat the ball into the turf with 16 ground-ball outs, seven on flies and four by line drives, pops or sacrifice bunts. Bobby Knoop was kept the busiest with seven assists from his second-base spot.
  Twice the Yankees advanced runners to third base.
  Boyer reached on an error by Knopp (a three-time Gold Glover) leading off the third. He reached second on Bouton's sacrifice bunt back to Chance, and went to third on Kubek's grounder to Chance. Richardson lined out to first to end the inning.
  After Chance had retired 12 in a row, Tresh walked leading off the seventh, moved to second on Maris' single to left and was at third after Pepitone grounded into a second-short-first double play. Chance struck out Blanchard to end that threat.
  Counting those final two batters of the seventh, Chance retired 14 straight for 15 outs including the double play in the seventh. After yielding a leadoff single to Kubek to start the 12th, he got nine of the final 10 batters he faced before giving way to Smith in the 15th. Pinch hitter Hector Lopez interrupted that last string with a one-out single in the 13th, and he was erased on a force-out.
  While Chance was relatively sailing, Bouton was somewhat struggling before he gave way to Mickey Mantle at bat in the 14th. Three times the Angels put runners on third base.
  Their biggest threat came in the ninth when the Angels loaded the bases in somewhat cumbersome, small-ball fashion. Bob Rodgers got an infield single to first starting the inning but was out at second on Kirkpatrick's fielder's choice sacrifice bunt attempt. Kirkpatrick then stole second, his second of two steals on the year. After Tom Satriano struck out, Joe Koppe reached on another infield single, this one to short, with Kirkpatrick advancing to third. Yankees manager Yogi Berra was ejected for arguing the safe call on Kubek's throw to Boyer at third attempting to retire Kirkpatrick.
  Knoop was walked intentionally to put the force out at any base, but Bouton disposed of the turbulence by striking out Chance, one of three times he whiffed on the day and 53 on the season in 89 at-bats for the .066 lifetime hitter -- the lowest for players with at least 500 plate appearances during their career.
  But Chance almost helped give himself the lead the inning before when he sacrificed Knopp to third after a leadoff double. After Albie Pearson popped out, Bill Moran walked, but Clinton hit into a fielder's choice, leaving Knopp 90 feet away from making it 1-0.
  Back-to-back singles by Kirkpatrick and Satriano put runners at first and third with one out in the second. But Kirkpatrick was picked off by Howard on an attempted squeeze play with "Spanky" and Koppe, and Koppe then popped out foul to third.
  Although he didn't get the win, by handcuffing the Yankees, Chance was working on some hoodoo over the Bronx Bombers that continued through the season and his career.  He pitched 50 innings against the Yankees in 1964, allowing only 14 hits and one run, a homer by Mantle. In five starts he threw four complete games and three shutouts, going 4-0 with a 0.18 ERA.
  “Every time I see his name on a lineup card, I feel like throwing up," Mantle said of Chance.
   Sportswriter Phil Pepe wrote that year, “It’s Chance, not CBS, who owns the New York Yankees. Lock, stock and barrel.”
   And in owning the Yankees he became the new "Yankee Killer." Detroit Tigers pitcher Frank Lary had gained that moniker for repeatedly beating the perennial powerhouse in the 1950s and '60s. In his career  Lary was 28-13 with a 3.32 ERA against New York, while Chance finished 18-11 with a 2.34 ERA.
  With the no-decision Chance, who'd been slowed early on in the season by a blister on his pitching hand, was left at 4-2 but was establishing his dominance. In his previous start, four days earlier against Boston, Chance had pitched a two-hit shutout, striking out 15 batters. Two starts before that he had pitched a three-hit shutout against the Yankees in Yankee Stadium.

  He went on to post a 20-9 record with a 1.65 ERA and 207 strikeouts. He led the AL in wins and ERA and was third in strikeouts. His ERA was the lowest mark since Spud Chandler's 1.64 in 1943. He also led the league in shutouts (11), innings pitched (278), complete games (15), WAR and least homers per nine innings pitched. He was fifth in MVP voting.
  In winning the Cy Young award, he collected 17 votes to easily outdistance the National League's Larry Jackson (2 votes, 24-11, 3.14) and Sandy Koufax (1 vote, 19-5. 1.74). He was the only pitcher to win the Cy Young besides Koufax between 1963 and '66.
  He was the starting pitcher in the All-Star Game, throwing three scoreless innings, allowing two hits and leaving with a 1-0 lead in a 7-4 AL loss.
  Bouton, 3-5 with a four-game losing streak entering June 6, was 18-13 with 3.02 ERA and 125 strikeouts for the season. He went on to go 2-0 with a 1.56 ERA in the Yankees' World Series win over the St. Louis Cardinals. He had a 2-1 record with a 1.48 ERA over three starts in the 1963 and '64 Series.
  Despite those fine '64 numbers he was off his 1963 ledger of 21-7, 2.53 and was never the same again because of arm miseries, winning less than half as many games for the remainder of his 10-year career. He had a final record of 62-23 with a 3.57 ERA.

  He made a comeback, not so much on the mound as a knuckleballer but in the literary world with the tell-all diary of his 1969 season, "Ball Four." The controversial best-seller was in 1995 honored by the New York Public Library as one of the greatest books published in the 20th century. He authored more books post-1969 and became an actor, activist, sportscaster and one of the creators of Big League Chew. He died July 20, 2019, at age 80.
  Like Bouton, Chance fell off in subsequent seasons after 1964, although not nearly as precipitously. He averaged 16 wins over the next four seasons, including 20 in 1967 when he was named the AL Comeback Player of the Year. He pitched at least 200 innings a year for seven straight seasons beginning in 1962. He had a final mark of 128-115 with a 2.92 ERA over 11 seasons.
  After retirement, among other things he worked for a carnival, managed boxer Ernie Shavers, was president of the International Bowling Association and became known as a world-class gin player. He also maintained a lifelong friendship with Belinsky and wouldn't work a card-signing show unless Belinsky was also invited. 
  So in and out of baseball Chance and Bouton could be considered sympatico souls, pursuing a variety of interests beyond the pitching mound. And on that night of June 6, 1964, they were similarly unyielding kings of the hill.
Sources:
Play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1964/B06060LAA1964.htm and https://www.billjamesonline.com/the_greatest_of_games/ 
Biographical information on Chance and Bouton: https://sabr.org/bioproj/topic/ball-four, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/51d19253 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Bouton
Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com. 

1960 World Series Game 7: The Mick makes Maz's day

Mickey Mantle dives safety back into first base around the tag attempt by Rocky Nelson in the top of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. Mantle's alert base running allowed the New York Yankees to score the tying run, but the Pittsburgh Pirates prevailed 10-9. On his knees telling Mantle to hit the dirt is first-base coach Wally Moses.

His Pittsburgh teammates wait to greet him as Bill Mazeroski, accompanied by ecstatic fans, heads for the plate after hitting a homer leading off the bottom of the ninth inning that gave the Pirates a 10-9 victory in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series.

By Phil Ellenbecker

  Mickey Mantle's baseball greatness can be measured in hundreds of feet, by virtue of his tape-measure homers -- by thousands of feet, if those mammoth clouts were strung together. 

  And his greatness can also be measured, in at least once instance, in inches, by virtue of how close a play on the bases was that may have been about as great a play as Mantle made in his career.

  But Mantle's heads-up base running feat didn't make him a hero. Instead, it made a hero of Bill Mazeroski. And robbed Hal Smith of his hero's mantle (ahem).

  Mazeroski will be remembered forever for his solo home run off Ralph Terry leading off the bottom of the ninth inning that gave the Pittsburgh Pirates a 10-9 victory over Mantle's New York Yankees in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, at Pittsburgh's Forbes Field on Thursday, Oct. 13. It's the only time a ninth-inning homer has ever ended Game 7 of a World Series.

  But it wouldn't have happened if not for Mantle's alertness on the bases in the top of the ninth. With Pittsburgh leading 9-7, Mantle brought the Yankees within a run when his third single in five at-bats drove in Bobby Richardson. The switch-hitting Mantle went to the opposite field for the hit to right.

  With runners now at first and third against Harvey Haddix, Yogi Berra followed with a hard hopper toward Pirates first baseman Rocky Nelson, who speared it and tagged first for the second out of the inning. Nelson then made a move toward second to double up Mantle, assuming that Mantle would be proceeding on contact toward the next base.

  But no. Since Nelson had gone directly to first for the out instead of second, the force out was removed and Mantle wasn't required to advance. The Mick put on the brakes, dove back to first and got around the tag attempt by Nelson.

 “Nelson stepped on the bag to retire Berra but Mantle regained first base, evading Nelson’s tag with a beautiful headlong slide.” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. 

  And instead of the game being over with the Pirates winning 9-8, Mantle's keen base running kept it at two out and allowed Gil McDougald to scamper home from third with the tying run.

  Had Mantle been out, he would have been the second Yankees legend in World Series history to make the final Game 7 out on the bases in a one-run game. Babe Ruth was caught stealing to end the 1926 World Series.

  But the Yankees' new life was short-lived. Haddix got out of the inning when Bill Skowron forced Mantle with a fielder's choice grounder to Dick Groat.

  And Mazeroski ended it with a bang for the Pirates and a thud for the Yankees when he led off the bottom of the inning, on a 1-0 count, with a homer to left-center field on a high fastball, Berra gazing forlornly as the ball sailed over the wall.

   “I thought it would go over. … I was hoping it would," Mazeroski said. " But I was too happy to think."    

  So were Pittsburgh Pirates fans, some of whom had been starving for a World Series title since 1925. They hadn't seen a pennant since 1927, when the Bucs were swept by the Murderers Row Yankees.

  “Mazeroski, who must be the greatest .270 hitter in baseball – he is today, that’s for certain – went sailing around the bases waving his hat in one hand and pandemonium broke loose among the 36,683 patrons," the Post-Gazette reported. "The crowd poured down on him like a mob attacking a public enemy.” 

  Mazeroski brought finality to a wacky, topsy-turvy game in which the Pirates had forged ahead 4-0 after two innings, only to see the Yankees claim a 5-4 lead through six and 7-4 through 7 1/2.

  But you could say the Pirates had the Yankees right where they wanted them. Twenty-time times during the regular season they'd won after trailing through six innings. 

  And yet it looked like the Damn Yankees might be set to claim yet another world title, their 19th overall, with Bobby Shantz taking the hill for the bottom of the eighth. Shantz, the 1952 American League MVP now riding out his career as a reliever, had shut out the Bucs in four relief innings, facing the minimum 12 batters thanks to two double plays.

  But Shantz, who'd thrown 2/3 of an inning of shutout relief each in Game 2 and Game 4, giving him 5 1/3 innings of 0.00 ERA in the Series, hadn't completed more than three innings all season. In his first try at five he faltered. Gino Cimoli, pinch hitting for pitcher Elroy Face, led off with an opposite-field, pop-fly single to right. Bill Virdon followed with a grounder that took a high hop on the hard Forbes turf, and the ball struck shortstop Tony Kubek in the Adam's apple and knocked him to the ground, allowing Virdon to reach safely with a single. Besides ruining a potential double play, the bizarre skip knocked Kubek out of the game, the Forbes crowd giving him a standing ovation as he left the field.

  " It was tailor-made to produce a shortstop-to-second-to-first double play, but not that day," wrote Dick Rosen in an article on Hal Smith for the Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project.  "On the Forbes Field infield, which was often called the Pirates’ 'secret weapon' because of its flinty surface, the ball took a crazy bounce, hit Kubek in the throat, and caused him to gag and almost lose his breath. Kubek had to be removed from the game. New York Times sports columnist Arthur Daley said of this ground ball that it was 'spitefully steered by Dame Fortune.' ”

  Groat then singled to right to score Cimoli, and Jim Coates relieved Shantz. Bob Skinner, batting in the No. 3 hole in the Pittsburgh lineup, bunted Virdon and Groat over to second and third for the first out of the inning. Nelson flied out to right and the runners held, not taking a chance on Maris' throwing arm, as he made a  'perfect no-bounce throw to the plate,” wrote Mike Huber in an article for the SABR's Games Project.

  The next batter, Roberto Clemente, hit a slow chopper to the right of Skowron at first and beat it out for a single, while Virdon scored to make it 7-6. Shantz, a seven-time Gold Glover winner, might have come in handy on this play, Rosen noted, because his replacement Coates didn't cover first on Clemente's hit.

  (Clemente was 1-for-4 in the game, hit .310 in the Series and had a .314 average during the season, only his second .300 season in six years of what became a legendary 18-year career that included a final average of .317, four batting titles and a record 12 Gold Gloves.)

  Now it was catcher Smoky Burgess' turn. Only Burgess wasn't in the game because Joe Christopher had run for him the inning before, after Burgess had gotten his second single in three at-bats.

Hal Smith celebrates with teammates after giving the Pittsburgh Pirates a 9-7 lead with a three-run homer in the eighth inning of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. An inning later, Smith was upstaged as Bill Mazeroski's homer gave Pittsburgh a 10-9 win over the New York Yankees.

  So up came his backup Smith, who'd seen about as much action during the season as Burgess in a platoon arrangement. And Smith gave the Pirates supreme production out of their catcher spot this afternoon by uncorking a three-run homer to deep left on a 1-2 count to push the Pirates in front 9-7.

  Smith had shown some pop in his bat in '61 with 11 homers in 286 at-bats. And as Rosen pointed out, he knew the Yankees pitchers from having faced them while with Kansas City from 1956 through 1959.

  "They didn't scare me," he said.

  (Smith had a doppelganger of sorts at this time. Another Hal Smith also played catcher for nine simultaneous years. Also at about the same time, the actor Hal Smith was playing the town drunk on "The Andy Griffith Show.")  

  After the Pirates regained the lead, Terry relieved Coates, Yankees manager Casey Stengel's fourth pitching change of the day, and Don Hoak flied out to left. The Pirates were three outs away from their first world title in 35 years.

   “After Smith got us ahead, I just raced onto the field," Mazeroski said in “Maz and the ’60 Pirates: When Pittsburgh and Its Pirates Went All the Way,” by Jim O'Brien. "I just couldn’t wait to get those last three outs. Of course, we didn’t get those three outs; we didn’t get them before they scored two runs.”

  Richardson and Dale Long, pinch hitting for Kubek's replacement Joe DeMaestri, had back-to-back singles off Bob Friend on four pitches to set the table for the Yankees' game-tying rally, prompting Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh to summon Haddix, his fourth pitcher of the day. That capped a forgetful Series for Friend, one of the Pirates' most reliable pitchers ever in a 16-year career. He'd been shelled in two earlier starts, taking the loss both times, and had a 13.50 ERA in his three outings covering six innings. This was just his second relief appearance of the year.

  Haddix got Roger Maris to foul out to catcher Smith. Earlier the lefty swinging Maris had fouled out twice to Hoak at third and grounded out to the pitcher as he went 0-for-5.

  (Maris batted .267 for the Series with two homers. After the season he won the first of back-to-back American League MVPs after hitting 39 homers with 112 RBIs and a .283 average. The next season he broke Babe Ruth's single-season homer record in a .269-61-141 season.)       

  After Maris went out so mildly, Mickey came along to save the day. Momentarily. But he was crying in the locker room after Mazeroski handed the Yankees a crushing defeat. Mantle has called it the biggest disappointment of his career.

  (Mantle had a stellar Series with team highs of a .400 average and three homers to go with 11 RBIs. With his three homers he moved within one of Ruth's career Series record of 15, a mark he'd surpass with four more homers in subsequent Series. However, Richardson, with a .367 average, one homer and a record 12 RBIs, captured the Series MVP, the only player off a losing team that has been so honored.)

  Haddix, who the year before had pitched 12 perfect innings against Milwaukee only to lose the perfect game, no-hitter and the game in the 13th, was this day's winning pitcher courtesy Maz's heroics, despite blowing a save opportunity. He'd logged 6 1/3 innings in getting the Game 5 win, giving him a 2-0, 2.45 ledger in his only Series appearance.

  Terry, meanwhile, went 0-2 in the Series, having also lost Game 4.

In happier times, Ralph Terry is hoisted on his teammate' shoulders after completing a 1-0 victory for the New York Yankees in Game 7 of the 1962 World Series over San Francisco. Two years earlier, Terry had been the Game 7 loser after giving up Bill Mazeroski's ninth-inning homer in a 10-9 loss to Pittsburgh.

 He was redeemed two years later when he went 2-1 with a 1.80 ERA, including a 1-0 Game 7 win, as the Yankees prevailed over San Francisco in the 1962 Fall Classic with Terry winning MVP.

  Pirates starter Vernon Law was also 2-0 in the 1960 Series and appeared headed toward becoming the second pitcher in four years (Lew Burdette in '57) to go 3-0. He retired the first eight batters he faced and 12 of the first 14 before Skowron broke up his shutout with a leadoff homer in the fifth. Still, Law held a 4-1 advantage thanks to Nelson's two-run homer in the first, deep into the right-field seats, and Virdon's two-run single in the second.

  Stengel gave notice of a quick hook on this do-or-die afternoon when he came and got starter Bob Turley after Burgess' single leading off the second. Bill Stafford relieved and walked Hoak. Mazeroski, with an early small-ball contribution way before his big blow later, loaded the bases with a bunt single down the third-base line. Law grounded into a pitcher-catcher-first double play, but Virdon's hit to right made it 4-0.

  Murtaugh likewise didn't waste much time going to the bullpen with a 4-1 lead when Law ran into a bit of trouble with a single by Richardson and a walk to Kubek leading off the sixth. Elroy Face came in and got Maris to pop out, but Mantle cut the margin to 4-2 with a single plating Richardson.

  Berra then gave the Yankees their first lead of the day at 5-4 with a three-run homer, his 11th career Series four-bagger, tying him with Duke Snider for third all time. (He passed Duke next year and finished with 12, behind Mantle's 18 and Ruth's 12). Berra deposited an 0-1 pitch into the right-field seats down the line. 

  The Yanks extended the lead to 7-4 in the top of the eighth against Face on an RBI single by John Blanchard and an RBI double down the left-field line by Clete Boyer, after a walk to Berra on a full count and an infield single by Skowron with two out. Skowron was safe on a bouncer to third after Hoak threw too late trying to force out Berra. That gave "Moose" 12 hits in the Series, at that time tying him with five others for the record. 

  Shantz lined out to right after Boyer's hit, but that was it for Face, whose final line was 3 runs, all earned, over 4 innings, giving him a 5.23 ERA over 4 games and 10 innings in the Series.

  (Face was coming off a season for the ages in 1959 in which he went 18-1, all out of the bullpen, for an all-time record .947 winning percentage to go with 10 saves and a 2.70 ERA. He wasn't so lucky in the win-loss department in 1960, going 10-8, but was otherwise plenty solid with 24 saves, second in the NL, a 2.90 ERA and a league-leading 68 appearances.)

  So it was onto the fateful times at bat for Pittsburgh and New York, and all the twists and turns and heroic homers and bad hops. And a savvy stop and slide by Mickey Mantle. All overshadowed by the Magic of Maz.

  “Maz is eighth in the batting order, a spot that doesn’t exactly rank him as the greatest hitter of all time," Hoak said, "yet he comes up after the Yanks have tied the score in the ninth, and bam! I said, ‘Get out of here, you rotten, stinking, beautiful baseball.' ”

Just win, baby

  Maz's game-winner capped a bizarre Series in which the Yankees outscored the Pirates 55-27, including a combined margin of  38-3 in their three victories.

  But it was fitting that when it got close at the end, Pittsburgh should prevail. The Pirates were a model of efficiency all season, going 26-22 in one-run games, winning 15 in their final at-bat, 12 of those with two out. So efficient were the Pirates in Game 7 that they left only one runner on base. And on a do-what-it-takes team with no true superstars -- Clemente hadn't risen to that status yet -- Mazeroski was as good a hero as any.

   "All year we’ve been a fighting, come-from-behind ballclub," he said. "We always felt we could pull it out – even after the Yankees tied it in the ninth."

   Afterward, the Yankees were as much stunned as disappointed.

  “What happened to us, for cryin’ out loud, what happened?” Maris asked.
  Answered Yogi: “We just got beat, Roger, by the damnedest baseball team that me or you or anybody else ever played against.”
                                                            

Sources:

  Play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1960/B10130PIT1960.htm , with additional detail from https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/october-13-1960-mazeroskis-heroic-homer-brings-championship-pittsburgh,  https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/a5cc0d05, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ffabc630, https://bleacherreport.com/articles/490011-50-years-ago-today-bill-mazeroski-shocked-the-world  and  "Sweet ’60: The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates," edited by Clinton Blue Parker and Bill Nowlin

  Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.      

'41 Midsummer Classic: Behind Teddy's ballgame

With Joe DiMaggio (left) there to greet him, Ted Williams crosses the plate after hitting a three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning to give the American League a 7-5 victory in the 1941 All-Star Game in Detroit on July 8.

With a pair of two-run homers that gave the National League a 5-3 lead, Arky Vaughan stood to be the hero of the 1941 All-Star Game. Then he was upstaged by Ted Williams' three-run homer that gave the Americans a 7-5 victory.

By Phil Ellenbecker

  Much has been made of what a glorious year 1941 was for baseball, with Joe Dimaggio's record hitting streak, Ted Williams being the last to hit .400, the long-daffy Dodgers finally winning a pennant -- all this coming on the cusp of the U.S. plunging into World War II with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The best of times before the worst of times, so to speak, and pardon my Dickens.
  And much has been made of what a glorious showcase and centerpiece for the Splendor of 1941 that year's All-Star Game was for Williams, age 22 and in his third year in the big leagues. A three-run homer by "The Splendid Splinter" in the bottom of the ninth inning brought a dramatic climax to a 7-5 victory for the American League at Detroit's Briggs Stadium on Tuesday, July 8.
    But what I intend to do here is take a look at events that set the stage for Teddy Ballgame's blast. First of all, before Williams came to the fore, the game already had a ready-made hero in Arky Vaughan, whose back-to-back two-run homers had given the NL a 5-3 lead coming into the ninth. He had become the first player in the All-Star Game's nine-year history to homer twice in a game, and those two homers were a third of the total he had for the Pittsburgh Pirates during the regular season.
  A somewhat overlooked Hall of Famer, Vaughan was ranked the second-best shortstop of all time behind prohibitive favorite Honus Wagner in Bill James' "Historical Baseball Abstract." He wasn't voted into the Hall until 1985, by Veterans Committee vote, yet he ranked second behind Wagner in lifetime batting average among shortstops, won one batting title and three times led the league in on-base percentage, walks and triples. He was selected to nine straight All-Star Games and hit .364 in the Midsummer Classic.

  And when you stand up side-by-side the batting lines of Vaughan and Williams on July 8, 1941, you could make as equal or better a case for MVP with Vaughan, who went 3-for-4 with two runs scored and four RBIs and his two homers, over Williams, 2-for-4 with a run and four RBIs and his game-ender.

  Beyond the stolen thunder from Vaughan, another thing that sticks out to me in the prelude to Ted's Big Bang was questionable managing by NL manager Bill McKechnie, a Hall of Famer, in that fateful last half-inning.

  First up for the Nationals was Claude Passeau, who'd come on to pitch in the seventh and threw a 1-2-3 inning, then allowed a run  in the eighth. McKechnie had given his first three pitchers two innings apiece, but decided to give Passeau a chance at three and allowed him to bat. Passeau was not a bad hitter, with a .221 average and three homers in 1941, .192 lifetime with 15 homers. And McKechnie was down to four position players on the bench, and one, Hank Leiber, was inactive from June 24 to Aug. 6 so no doubt unavailable. Besides that he hit only .216 that year and one has to question why he was on the squad.

  But also available was Dolph Camilli, who was the NL MVP that year with 34 homers and 120 RBIs. You might suggest his numbers weren't that great at the All-Star break. No, he was second in homers with 16 and in RBIs with 54.

  And what had McKechnie done previously when his pitchers came up? He pinch hit for his starter, Whit Wyatt, his first time up. (Wyatt hit. 239 with three homers that year.) Paul Derringer's turn didn't come around before he gave way to Bucky Walters, a former position player and more than capable batsman (lifetime .242 BA), who doubled and scored in his first at-bat and then was pinch hit for. Passeau was the next pitcher, and his initial plate appearance was the top of the ninth.

  Passeau flew out to right, bringing up Chicago Cubs teammate Stan Hack. So after passing up a pinch-hitting opportunity for Passeau, McKechnie sends up Cookie Lavagetto, a Brooklyn Dodgers teammate of Camilli who hit .277 that year, to hit for Hack. Lavagetto grounded out to first, and Terry Moore popped out foul to the first baseman to retire the side. Moore finished 0-for-5 and was the only player besides Pete Reiser to  play the whole game for the NL.

  McKechnie's substitution of Lavagetto makes sense because Lavagetto was a third baseman like Hack, while Camilli played first. But why not let Hack, who'd singled and walked in four previous trips to the plate and was a .371 hitter that year while leading the league in hits, bat for himself, for a fifth time as he did Moore?

  (Speaking of Lavagetto and Camilli, curiously Dodgers manager Leo Durocher had Lavagetto, who drove in 78 runs with one homer in 1941, batting ahead of Camilli throughout the year -- third through fifth for Cookie and fifth and sixth for Dolph, in random checks.)

  (And speaking of five times to the plate, would-be All-Star MVP Vaughan wouldn't have gotten that opportunity because Eddie Miller was sent in for him at short to begin the bottom of the ninth).

   Second-guessing aside, the NL still had a 5-3 lead and if Passeau could hold the Americans at bay, the senior circuit could win its second straight and close its All-Star deficit to 5-4. And it appeared headed that way when Frankie Hayes popped out to second leading off.

  But Ken Keltner, batting for pitcher Al Smith in the No. 9 spot, set the winning rally in motion by bouncing a grounder off Miller at shortstop for an infield single. Joe Gordon followed with a single to right. A walk to Cecil Travis loaded the bases.

  The AL pulled within 5-4 when Keltner scored on DiMaggio's fielder's choice that retired Travis at second. Facing an 0-2 count, DiMagio sent a grounder to Miller at short, who went to Billy Herman, whose throw pulled first baseman Frank McCormick off the bag in the attempt to complete an inning-ending double play

  Enter Williams. After fouling off the first pitch from Passeau and looking at two wide ones, he sent a chest-high fastball onto the facing of the right-field roof at Briggs. Here comes Gordon, here comes DiMaggio, here comes Ted, there's your ballgame.  Bring on the jubilation.

  "Ted Williams bounded down the first-base line at Briggs Stadium like the kid he was," wrote Marc Lancaster in his account of the game for the Society of American Baseball Research's Games Project. "He clapped his hands twice as he neared the bag, then bounded over it with a joyful skip as he made his way around the bases."

  The thrill was never gone for Ted.

  “I’ve never been so happy and I’ve never seen so many happy guys,” Williams would write decades later in his autobiography. “… I had hit what remains to this day the most thrilling hit of my life.”

  A mob of AL teammates was waiting at the plate to bring Ted home, including starting pitcher Bob Feller, who sprang from the clubhouse to join the celebration. Remember, this was when the All-Star Game really, really meant something to the players involved. Detroit Free Press columnist put it in perspective:

    “That one pitch destroyed forever the theory accepted in some quarters that there is no spirit in this All-Star game … that there is nothing at stake," he wrote. “No college football team ever showed more enthusiasm than the American Leaguers when Williams came trotting through the lengthening shadows toward home plate.”

  Meanwhile, the Nationals were "plunged into gloom," according to the Free Press, after the ninth-inning gut punch.

  "Ted, you're just not human," McKechnie said, according to the 1958 issue of Baseball  Heroes magazine.

Claude Passeau, shown with Hall of Famer Dizzy Dean in the Chicago Cubs dugout in 1939, surrendered a three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning by Ted Williams that gave the American League a 7-5 win over Passeau and the Nationals in the 1941 All-Star Game.

National League manager Bill McKechnie played a rather pat hand in the ninth inning as the American League rallied from a 5-3 deficit to win the 1941 All-Star Game, 7-5.

  Back to second-guessing: What if McKechnie had wanted to stop the bleeding before Williams came along, or had pinch hit for Passeau and had to go to the bullpen at the start of the inning? He had three pitchers available. One, Cy Blanton, wasn't too effective that year, going 6-13 with a 4.51 ERA. Another was Carl Hubbell, an All-Star legend with five consecutive strikeouts of Hall of Famers in the '34 game. But by this time he was in the middle of his third-to-last season, although he didn't fare badly in 1941 at 11-9 with a 3.57 ERA.
  The other choice, Lon Warneke, would have been a more-than adequate replacement for Passeau. The "Arkansas Hummingbird" went 17-9 with a 3.15 ERA that season, while Passeau was 14-14, 3.35 and was making his first All-Star appearance in his sixth full year in the big leagues. Warneke had appeared in three All-Star Games.

  More second-guessing: With runners at first and third and two out in the bottom of the ninth, McKechnie could have chosen to intentionally walk lefty-swinging Williams and force a right-on-right matchup between Passeau and Dom DiMaggio. The Cincinnati Reds skipper talked it over with catcher Harry Danning and his infielders. The decision was made to pitch to Williams.
  Ted, determined to made amends for whiffing looking the inning before against Passeau, made the NL pay.“I said: ‘Listen, you lug. He outguessed you last time and you got caught with your bat on your shoulder for a called third strike,' " Williams said. " 'You were swinging late when you fouled one off, too. Let’s swing and swing a little earlier this time and see if we can connect.’”

  That he did.

Before then, back and forth

  Prior to the ninth-inning drama, the 54,674 at Briggs had witnessed a seesaw game with increasing suspense.
  After the first 4 1/2 innings had gone the minimum 21 batters (two double plays and a pickoff moving things along), Williams gave an indication of things to come by doubling in Travis with two out in the bottom of the fourth off Derringer, after Travis had doubled with one out.
  The NL squared matters in the sixth when Moore's fly out out to left off Thornton Lee scored Walters, who'd led off the inning with his double. (Moore wasn't credited with a sacrifice fly since 1941 was one of 36 of the 65 seasons before 1954 when the sacrifice fly rule wasn't in effect. Thus Moore's 0-for-5 in the box score that day.)
  The Americans went back ahead in their half of the sixth when a single by pinch hitter Lou Boudreau plated DiMaggio, following walks to DiMaggio and Jeff Heath around a fly out by Williams.
  Vaughan put the Nationals in command with his two-run blows, both to the upper deck in right, in the seventh and eighth. Enos Slaughter was aboard in the seventh after he'd greeted new pitcher Sid Hudson with a single and moved to second when Williams in left fumbled the hit. Vaughn followed with a homer for a 3-2 AL lead. After Johnny Mize doubled off Eddie Smith (the game's winning pitcher) with one out in the eighth, Vaughan went deep again, giving the NL a 5-2 lead.
  It was the Brothers DiMaggio putting the AL within 5-3 in its half of the eighth. Dom DiMaggio singled to center off Passeau, driving in Joe, who'd doubled before Williams struck out looking for the second out of the inning.
    (Dom, who patrolled center field alongside Williams in Boston for 10 years, had yielded to Joe in center and was playing right field as an All-Star after entering the game in the top of the seventh.)
  Williams' punch-out prompted some lengthy jawing between the sharp-eyed slugger, known for getting the benefit of the doubt from the umpires, and home-plate arbiter Babe Pinelli.
  Boudreau followed Dom DiMaggio with his second single of the night and advanced to two bases away from tying the game when Reiser made his second error of the game in center.
   (Reiser, whose kamikaze, wall-crashing, outfielding style contributed to a tragically short nine-year career, was amazing in his first full season of 1941, leading the NL in WAR, hitting, slugging, on-base percentage, on-base plus slugging, total bases, runs, doubles and triples. He was second behind teammate Camilli in the MVP voting.)
  (Speaking of making a splash in 1941, Stan Musial broke in with the St. Louis Cardinals on Sept. 17 of that campaign after tearing up the Class C Western Association in Springfield with a .379 average at the beginning the season and then the Double-A International League in Rochester, hitting at a .326 clip. He found himself in St. Louis in the middle of a pennant race that came up short and hit .426 in 12 games. As we said at the start, 1941 was quite the year.)
  Getting back to June 8 of '41, Passeau got out of the eighth by fanning Jimmie Foxx, one of nine Hall of Famers on the AL squad. But the roof caved in on Claude the following frame, raining Ted Williams. Maybe Passeau shouldn't have been in there.
 But maybe it doesn't make a difference. Maybe it was destined to be for Teddy Ballgame. After all, 1941 was Willams' year (among many), and he was a star among stars in the All-Star Game -- the career leader in RBIs, second in homers and third in runs scored, hits and total bases in the Midsummer Classic.
  He was never better than in 1946 at home in Fenway Park, when he went 4-for-4 with two homers, four runs scored and five RBIs in leading the AL to a 12-0 shellacking. He rose to the occasion, as he did in '41, as did Arky Vaughan. But who remembers Arky Vaughan?  Wrote Gayle Talbot of the Associated Press, he wound up “just another unfortunate who almost hit the jackpot.”

Sources: 
For play-by-play information: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1941/B07080ALS1941.htm, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/july-8-1941-ted-williams-hits-most-thrilling-home-run-win-all-star-game-detroit and Baseball Heroes, 1958 issue, Whitestone Publications

For Arky Vaughan information:  https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/4e00be9b

For history of sacrifice fly info:  http://research.sabr.org/journals/sacrifice-fly 

Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.    

  

  

6-27-58: Pierce's bid for perfection spoiled

On June 27, 1958, Billy Pierce of the Chicago White Sox came within one out of becoming the first left-handed pitcher to throw a perfect game in a 3-0 defeat of the Washington Senators.

Topps got his name wrong on this 1956 baseball card, but Washington Senators reserve catcher Ed Fitz Gerald made a name for himself when he broke up Billy Pierce's bid for a perfect game June 27, 1958, with a two-out double. It was Fitz Gerald's first extra-base hit of the year.

By Phil Ellenbecker
  Billy Pierce entered the night of June 27, 1958, already having compiled an impressive dossier of pitching for the Chicago White Sox during the 1950s. He'd won 20 games the previous two years, 18 another; four times an American League All-Star, three times a starter, two times The Sporting News' American League Pitcher of the Year; led the league in wins, ERA and strikeouts one time each and three times leader in complete games.
  And he'd thrown a pair of one-hitters. On this night, before 11,300 at Comiskey Park, he nearly put a cherry on top of everything he'd done previously.
  With two out in the top of the ninth inning, Pierce was working on a perfect game, bidding to become the first left-hander in major league history in the modern era to achieve perfection, and the first to throw a perfect game in the regular season since fellow White Sock Charlie Robertson in 1922.
  But Ed Fitz Gerald, who managed a middling 12-year career as a reserve catcher with a .260 lifetime batting average, managed immortality of sorts when he stroked a first-pitch opposite-field double to right. He was batting for pitcher Russ Kemmerer, only the second substitution in the game. It was Fitz Gerald's 10th hit of the season.
  (Fitz Gerald was not unfamiliar with rising to the occasion. In fact, he had grown accustomed to heroism on a larger scale when he was responsible for single-handedly capturing two German soldiers on the Rhine during World War II.)
  “The book on Fitz Gerald was that he was a fastball hitter on the first ball and liked it inside where he could pull it," Pierce told sports writer Bill Madden in 1982. "So we threw him a curve away and he hit it into right field for a solid hit.  . . .  I didn’t feel that badly about it, really. It didn’t mean much at the moment. But now  . . .  well, now I wish I had got it. It would have been nice.”  After Pierce struck out Albie Pearson on three pitches to close the game for his third straight shutout, he had to settle for yet another one-hitter as the White Sox won 3-0. He pitched another one-hitter next year.
  The performance perhaps typifies Pierce, at 5-foot-11, 160 pounds a power pitcher who had a great career but came up a bit short of perhaps moving into Hall of Fame standards.
  But he was Hall of Fame material this night. He had the Senators continually beating the ball into the turf with 12 ground-ball outs while racking up nine strikeouts as he improved to 7-5 on the season in a contest that lasted 1 hour, 46 minutes. He went to a three-ball count on only two batters and allowed six balls to be hit out of the infield. He retired the Senators on just nine pitches in the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth.
  There were some close calls. With one out in the fourth inning, Rocky Bridges sent a liner down the right-field line that was foul by a foot. Bridges then hit a bouncer up the middle that Gold Glove winner Luis Aparicio flagged down from his shortstop position behind second. He spun and then "wheeled like the top of a swivel chair, his feet rooted to the ground" to throw out Bridges, as writer Bob Addie described it in the next morning's Washington Post.
  At the start of the sixth, third baseman Billy Goodman had to glove on a short-hop a hard shot by Ken Aspromonte but easily retired him.  Aspromonte threatened again in the ninth when he sent a dart toward second leading off the inning, but it was Little Louie to the rescue again as he speared the ball and threw to Ray Boone at first for the first out. Ken Korcheck struck out. One out from history. Then Fitz Gerald spoiled it, as he "sliced the first pitch down the right-field foul line, fair by anywhere from a foot to five feet," wrote  Jim Bigham in the Society for American Baseball Research's Game Project account. "(The distance becomes shorter with each passing year.)" Bigham added.  Comiskey anguish followed. From a 2009 article on the game in the Chicago Reader by Steve Bogira: "The crowd 'let out a dismal wail of the doomed,' " Addie would write in his Washington Post account. "Fitz Gerald, standing on second with his first extra-base hit of the season, was booed lustily. Though 'a kindly, family man,' Fitz Gerald' will be remembered in Chicago with such All-Star villains as Hitler, Benedict Arnold, Rasputin and the income tax collector,' Addie predicted."
 While Pierce was mowing 'em down, Kemmerer was matching him nearly goose egg for goose egg, and for most of the night it was a taut pitcher's duel. Kemmerer retired 12 of 14 batters in the fourth through seventh innings. But Chicago pushed across two runs in typical "Go-Go Sox" fashion in the eighth to give Pierce a 3-0 cushion and set the stage for ninth-inning drama.

Jim Landis, more known for flashing the leather as a five-time Gold Glove winning outfielder, was a hitting star for the Chicago White Sox on the night of June 27, 1958, in support of Billy Pierce's bid for a perfect game. He went 3-for-4, singled in the game's first run and scored the first in a two-run eighth inning in a 3-0 Chisox win.

  Leadoff hitter Jim Landis, who won five Gold Gloves as an outfielder but batted only .247 lifetime, led off the inning with a single to left field, his third single in four trips to the plate. After Nellie Fox sacrificed Landis to second, Goodman drew a  walk and Sammy Esposito ran for him.
 Boone struck out, but Landis and Esposito then pulled a double steal, and both scored when Sherman Lollar singled to left.
  (The White Sox, led by nine-time base-stealing champion Aparicio, earned their "Go-Go" nickname by leading the AL in thefts every year from 1951 through 1961, with Aparicio copping the individual crown six times in that span).
  Lollar's two-run single was more than enough with Pierce on cruise control.
  Pierce gave himself enough when he scored the game's first run in the third. A lifetime .183 hitter, he led off with a double to left-center, and Landis followed with a single to left-center that chased Pierce across home plate.
  Kemmerer finished with an eight-hitter with three strikeouts and one walk as he fell to 4-6. For the year he finished 6-15 with a 4.61 ERA. He went 43-59, 4.41 ERA in a nine-year career.
  Pierce went on to post a 17-11 record in 1958, second-most wins in the league, with a 2.68 ERA, also runner-up.
  The White Sox were in fifth place after the games of June 27 with a 31-34-1 record, 11 1/2 behind the New York Yankees. (The Kansas City Athletics were surprisingly in second, 8 1/2 back). The Senators were eighth in the eight-team AL at 28-38-2, 15 games back.
  The White Sox leapfrogged Boston, Detroit and Kansas City to land in second in the final AL standings, still 10 back of New York. (The A's plummeted to seventh at 73-81, 19 behind). The Nats (first in war, first in peace, last in the American League) stayed in the cellar with a final 61-93 ledger, trailing by 31 games.
  Chicago finished runner-up for the second straight season after five straight third-place finishes. The Chisox scaled the summit the next year, knocking the Yankees out of their pennant perch for the first time in five years and only the second time in the 1950s. Chicago lost 4-2 to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series after winning its first pennant since the infamous "Black Sox" team of 1919 that included eight players accused of throwing the World Series it lost to Cincinnati.
  Pierce began somewhat of a decline in 1959 as he went 14-15 with a 3.62 ERA and didn't even get a start in the World Series. But after averaging 13 wins a year his final four seasons in Chicago, he redeemed himself after a trade to San Fransciso with a 16-6, 3.90 season in 1962. He also had an 8-0 shutout of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Sandy Koufax in the opening game of an NL tiebreaker playoff, and a 1-2-3 ninth gave him the save in a 6-4 series-clinching victory. He then went 1-1 with a 2.40 ERA in two World Series starts. His 5-2 Game 6 win gave the Giants a shot at the title, but they fell short in a 1-0 Game 7 loss.
  Pierce had a 1.44 ERA in the postseason, but he didn't need a Frisco reprieve to salvage a career. He'd done too much over 13 years in Chitown. Pierce tops the franchise’s all-time list with 1,796 strikeouts and his 186 wins are fourth behind Hall of Famers Ted Lyons (260), Red Faber (254) and Ed Walsh (195). The White Sox retired his number 19 in 1987.  He was the American League’s winningest southpaw in the 1950s.
  Pierce retired in 1964 after three seasons in San Francisco. In his 18-year big league career with the Detroit Tigers, White Sox and Giants he had a 211-169 record, 1,999 strikeouts, 193 complete games, 38 shutouts and a 3.27 ERA.  He has appeared on the Golden Era veterans committee ballot for consideration in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
  While he wasn't quite at the elite level that guarantees automatic Hall entry, on June 27, 1978, he was about as elite, or perfect, as you can be on the pitcher's mound. The little lefty was King of the Hill, Ed Fitz Gerald or not.
Other no-hit bids 
  Here's how Pierce fared in his other one-hitters:
  -- June 15, 1950, vs. the Yankees: Billy Johnson led off the fifth with a single in a 5-0 win.
  -- April 16, 1953, vs. the Browns: Two-out double by Bobby Young in a 1-0 win.
  -- March 1, 1959, vs. the Senators: Leadoff double by Ron Samford in the third inning of a 3-1 win.
More White Sox perfection
  While Pierce came up short, almost 51 years to the date later, Mark Buehrle pitched the second perfect game in White Sox history, on June 23, 2009. Philip Humber added another for the Sox on April 21, 2012. The three perfect games ties the New York Yankees for the most by a team in major league history.
  When White Sox center fielder Dewayne Wise tracked down a fly ball in left-center for the final out in Buehrle's perfecto, he was staring Pierce in the face. Along the wall at U.S. Cellular Park (Comiskey had been torn down in 1991 and turned into a parking area) were portraits of the eight White Sox players whose numbers had been retired, including, second from right, Pierce. That's where Wise caught it.
  Wrote Bogira, " 'Lookit, he caught it right on your head!' screamed Pierce's wife, Gloria, in the living room of the Pierces' home in southwest-suburban Lemont."
Skipper to some deja vu
  The guy who sent Fitz Gerald up to hit, Senators manager Cookie Lavagetto, had come through with a similarly dramatic, climactic hit 21 years earlier, in the 1947 World Series for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
  With two out in the bottom of the ninth in Game 4 and the New York Yankees' Bill Bevens one out away from the first Series no-hitter in history, Lavagetto  pinch hit for Eddie Stanky and delivered -- just like Fitzgerald -- an opposite-field double to the right-field corner. But this hit not only broke up a no-hitter, it won the game, courtesy the two walks Bevens dealt earlier in the inning (he had 10 in the game) that led to the tying and winning runs crossing the plate for the Dodgers on Lavagetto's two-bagger.
  Lavagetto went 0-for-4 in the final three games of the Series as the Yankees prevailed 4-3. And that was it for Lavagetto's  10-year big league career.
  As for Bevens, he somewhat redeemed himself with 2 2/3 innings of scoreless relief (one walk) in the Yanks' 5-2 Game 7 win. And that was it for Bevens' four-year major league career.

Sources:
Game play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1958/B06270CHA1958.htm, with details from https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/june-27-1958-billy-pierces-near-perfect-game and https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/almost-perfect-the-difference-between-a-mark-buehrle-and-a-billy-pierce-one-out/Content?oid=1188821
Biographical information on Pierce: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/9e29afb8  and https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-fame/golden-era/pierce-billy
Biographical information on Fitz Gerald: http://www.baseballinwartime.com/player_biographies/fitz_gerald_ed.htm 
Perfect game info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_perfect_games#Perfect_games_by_team     
Ballpark info: https://www.ballparksofbaseball.com/ballparks/comiskey-park/
Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and SABR Biography Project sites, as well as baseballreference.com.    

The equalized '80s

Dwight Gooden, with 41 points in a rating system that rewards players for top-five finishes in certain categories, was the only major league player to top 41 points in the 1980s.

Mike Schmidt had three of the top four seasons among major league hitters in the 1980s. In his best season of 1981 he led the National League in seven categories and even finished fourth in average at .316, well above his career mark of .267.

By Phil Ellenbecker
  The 1980s was the decade when the elite baseball players came somewhat back to the pack. Whereas standouts of past years such as Ted Williams and Sandy Koufax stood out supremely from their peers, there wasn't as much separation between the best and the rest in the '80s when looking at my decade-by-decade ratings of the best players of each 10 years and the best individual seasons by those players. 

  But the game had been trending toward this since the 1940s, when there were 11 seasons with 40 or more points in my ratings system, led at bat by Ted Williams' 47 1/2 in 1949 and on the mound by Bob Feller's 46 in 1940. Williams had four 40-plus seasons in the decade, Feller three.

  Forty-plus seasons at bat in the 1950s came from Mickey Mantle (44, 1956) and Willie Mays (40, 1955). In the '60s, Sandy Koufax's 44 in 1965 topped all pitchers, while Triple Crown winners Frank Robinson (45 1/2, 1966) and Carl Yastrzemski (40 1/2, 1967) cracked 40 at the plate.

  Jim Rice was the lone player to reach 40 in the 1970s, leading batters with 41 in 1978. Steve Carlton came close at 39 in 1972, the season he won 27 games for a 57-win team.

   In the 1980s, pitcher Dwight Gooden was the lone player to hit 40, scoring 41 in 19 in 1985, with Bret Saberhagen pitching (37 1/2, 1989) and Mike Schmidt hitting (37,1981) the closest to 40.

  The settling effect is further exposed by looking at what brought up the bottom in the top 10 seasons for previous decades. In the 1940s, it was, by pitching and hitting respectively, 35 1/2 each; 1950s, 27 and 32; 1960s, 28 and 29 1/2; and 1970s, 29 1/2 and 28 1/2.

  In the 1980s, 25 points tied for the bottom top 10 pitching mark while at the plate it was 26 1/2.

  Which means not so much that the greats were greater in earlier years but by the 1980s, there were probably more good players to go around and spread out the standings among the leaders.

  So here's how I came up with the rankings:

  The “study” consisted of pulling out a Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia and looking over the listing of league leaders in several categories for each year. The top five were listed in some instances, the top four in others – don’t ask me how that line was drawn. The major categories almost all included the top five. In a couple instances just the top three were listed. Sometimes just two. I think a large number of players tied had something to do with less than four, and space limitations may have come into play. I gave five points for the top ranking, four for second and so on down. Where just four were listed, it went 5-4-3-2. If there was a tie, I divided the total number of points between the rankings by the number of players who were tied. Example: Three players tied for second – 4+3+2=9 divided by 3=3 points for each player.

Robin Yount, with 32 1/2 points in 1982, ranked second among major league hitters for best seasons in the 1980s. He was the only player to squeeze in among the top four besides Mike Schmidt.

  The categories: hitting -- batting average, total bases, hits, runs, slugging average, RBIs, walks, doubles, homers, steals, homer-percentage, triples; pitching  – winning percentage, saves, hits/nine innings, strikeouts/nine innings, ERA, strikeouts, shutouts, innings pitched, wins, complete games, walks/nine innings, games pitched.
  What I came up with I think gives a fairly representative presentation of the top players and seasons. There are enough categories included to give a balance between the counting stats that reward durability and reliability and the rate stats that address pure performance. Offense takes in power, speed, batting eye and contact; pitching -- power, control, durability and dominance (i.e., shutouts). Mind you, the numbers, other than the rankings I assigned, don’t matter here, just how the players ranked in comparison with their peers. Which I think is the best way to rate players, how they rate relative to others. The 48 homers Schmidt hit to lead the NL in 1980 don't matter any more than the 22 four players hit to tie for the AL lead in 1981 (a year where numbers were shrunk by a midseason strike). Those players were simply the best over their peers in that particular year in that particular category.

Top 10 batting seasons

1. Mike Schmidt, 1981, 37

2. Robin Yount, 1982, 32 1/2

3. Mike Schmidt, 1980, 31

4. Mike Schmidt, 1986, 30 1/2

5. Don Mattingly, 1986, 30

6. Dale Murphy 1985, 29 1/2

7 (tie). Don Mattingly, 1985, 28

           Dale Murphy, 1983, 28

9. Kevin Mitchell, 1989, 27

10. Bob Oliver, 1982, 26 1/2

  This list gives impetus to the argument that Mike Schmidt was the greatest third baseman over time, overall. The Phillies third sacker, whose 10 career Gold Gloves tops all National Leaguers at the hot corner, had three of the top four batting seasons in the 1980s, including the best mark of 37 in 1981. That year he led the NL in seven categories and even finished fourth in average at .316, well above his career mark of .267. George Brett, a contemporary of Schmidt's also ranked near the top of third basemen all time, didn't have any seasons in the top 10 and in fact ranked in the AL's top five only twice -- second in his MVP year of 1985 and fifth in the 1980 season when he flirted with batting .400, finishing at .390. Brett missed too many games with injuries and didn't have quite enough power to cover too many categories.

  Coming in behind Schmidt in top-10 seasons were Don Mattingly (1986 and '85) and Dale Murphy (1985 and '83). Robin Yount, second at 32 1/2 in 1982, was the only player to break through Schmidt's domination at the top. 

  Within the NL, Schmidt led the league three times with his top 10 seasons, while Murphy was tops in his two top 10s. Mattingly was the only multi-Al leader with his two top-10 finishes, which ranked second and third in the league for the decade behind Yount's 1982.

Bret Saberhagen had the second-best pitching season and second-best overall in the major leagues in the 1980s with 37 1/2 points in 1989.

Top 10 pitching seasons

1. Dwight Gooden, 1985, 41

2. Bret Saberhagen, 1989, 37 1/2

3. Roger Clemens, 1987, 33 1/2

4. Steve Carlton, 1980, 33

5. Mike Scott, 1986, 32

6. Roger Clemens, 1986, 27

7 (tie). Mike Norris, 1980, 25 1/2

           John Tudor, 1985, 25 1/2

9 (tie). Steve Carlton, 1982, 25

           Mario Soto, 1983, 25

           Dwight Gooden, 1984, 25

  As noted above, Gooden's top 41 topped all major league players in the 1980s. He tied for ninth in 1984, giving him two top-10 seasons to tie him with Roger Clemens (third, 1987 and sixth, 1986) and Carlton (fourth 1980 and tie for ninth, 1982). Saberhagen's 37 1/2 in 1989 took second to squeeze in among the top with Gooden, Clemens and Carlton and win him his second Cy Young Awsrd. That was also second overall in the majors and dwarfed his 1985 season of 16 when he won his first Cy and the Kansas City Royals won their first World Series title.

  Nobody besides Gooden or Carlton had more than two seasons leading the NL in the decade. Gooden's 41 in '85 was the top NL mark of the decade, followed by Carlton's 33 in 1980.

  Clemens and Dave Stieb each led AL pitchers in three straight seasons. In addition to his top 10 seasons in 1986 and '87, Clemens' 24 1/2 the following year led the loop. Stieb, although he didn't come close to cracking the top 10, topped the AL from 1982 through '84 with marks between 16 and 20 1/2. This is indicative of the lower bar for leaders in the '80s but also indicative of the respect the hard-luck Blue Jays right-hander deserved.

  Stieb, a seven-time All-Star who won the second-most games of any pitcher in the 1980s and led the AL in WAR from 1982 through 1984, never finished above fourth in Cy Young voting, that coming in 1982. Pete Vuckovich won it that year. About all Vuckovich did that year was win games -- for a pennant-winning team that led the major leagues in runs scored. He went 18-6 with a 3.34 ERA, leading the AL in winning percentage and placing second in victories. Stieb, pitching for a last-place team that was last in the AL in runs scored and fourth-lowest in the majors, went 17-14 with a 3.25 ERA. He led the league in complete games, innings pitched and shutouts, and was fifth in wins and ERA.

  Vuckovich was rated the second-worst Cy Young winner ever by The Sporting News. And TSN did name Stieb the AL Pitcher of the Year for '82.

  How star-crossed was Stieb? Four times in five years, he reached the ninth inning with no-hitters and came away empty, four times with one-hitters, once with a two-hitter. Three times in 12 months, he actually reached the last out of a no-hitter, including twice within six days in 1988. He finally finished  a no-hitter in 1990. 

  Speaking of bad Cy Young choices, TSN rated Steve Bedrosion, NL 1987, as the worst. Bedrosian won it on the strength of an NL-leading 40 saves, half of the Phillies' win total that year. But all that earned him was 16th in the MVP voting. He gave up 11 home runs in 89 innings and had a 74-28 strikeout-to-walk ratio, hardly the stuff of a dominant closer.

  So who got snubbed? Well, nobody really. Nolan Ryan topped our list that year with 20 points, followed by Mike Scott with 19 (coming off a fifth-place 32-point season).

  But that's the way the decade rolled, with more noticeable parity than in the past. 

  Sources: Listings for the top five each year came from  "The Baseball Encyclopedia: The Complete and Official Record of Major League Baseball," Macmillan. Information on the worst Cy Young Award selections came from  https://www.sportingnews.com/us/other-sports/news/the-10-worst-cy-young-winners-tablet/ccb1nqu47ahi19o6s7pjz67lg.