Kansas City baseball: Highlights, lowlights of A's, Royals and other basebal topics: In and out Barrett, 8-10-44: Braves hurler needs only 58 pitches

Red Barrett is shown on the cover of the April 1, 1946, issue of Life magazine, while a member of the St. Louis Cardinals. While with the Boston Braves in 1944, Barrett set a record for fewest number of pitchers in a complete game with 58 in a
2-0 shutout of the Cincinnati Reds on Aug. 10.

By Phil Ellenbecker

It was 1944, during the heart of the American involvement in World War II. It was a time for rationing of goods on the domestic front, because certain things were in short supply during the war, and rationing was the only way to make sure everyone got their fair share.

In that rationing spirit, Red Barrett of the Boston Braves disposed of the Cincinnati Reds the Thursday night of Aug. 10 with a minimum of pitches.

Only 58 of them, in fact. The right-hander set a record for fewest pitches required to throw a complete game as he two-hit the Reds, 2-0, at Crosley Field.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had declared major league baseball should go on during the war as a needed diversion for the American public. The 7,783 on hand this night weren't diverted too long, as it took Barrett and Bucky Walters of the Cincinnati Reds only 1 hour, 15 minutes to decide matters. It was the shortest night game in history, and the shortest road-team win in history. The big-league record for shortest game overall is 51 minutes set in 1919 by the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Phillies. As for number of pitches in a complete game, the next-closest was 67 in game was played in 1915, according to a Baseball Almanac post.

Although now acknowledged as a record-setting game for brevity, The Sporting News box score and several other Associated Press articles about it never made mention of the record.

Barrett was the model of efficiency in getting the Reds to get themselves out. He didn't walk a batter and didn't strike out a batter as he improved his record to 7-11.

Walters was pretty tidy himself, allowing six hits, walking one and striking out one -- Barrett. But it wasn't quite enough as the three-time league leader in victories, including this year, fell to 16-6.

Bucky Walters, one of the top pitchers in baseball in the early 1940s, held the Boston Braves to six hits and two runs the night of Aug. 10, 1944. But it wasn't enough as Red Barrett beat him and his Cincinnati Reds 2-0 in a game that lasted 1 hour, 15 minutes, the shortest night game in history.

A Boston Globe account of the game describes Barrett and Walters as continuing to “pour the pellet towards the plate with precision and speed.”

Think about Barrett throwing those 58 pitches. He used up one of them getting each of the 29 batters he faced out. So that leaves just 29 other pitches that he threw. So that means an average of two pitches, or an average count of one ball or one strike, no more, for each batter. Home-plate umpire Jocko Conlan, a Hall of Famer, wasn't kept too busy on balls-and-strikes calls.

Just the way Barrett wanted it.

“I’m no strike-outer," he told the Los Angeles Times in 1938, according to an article by Andrew Martin at medium.com. "These strikeout pitchers are chumps in my book. Me, I try to make them hit that first ball. After all, those other guys out there are supposed to work, too. If everybody in business was like me, there wouldn’t be so many people out of jobs. My idea is to throw as few pitches as possible. Even when you strike out a batter it generally takes four to seven, and sometimes even more pitches. I’d rather get that batter out on one pitch and save my arm.

"I am a control, and if you don’t mind my saying it, smart pitcher.”

Red retired the Reds on 15 ground outs, two line drives, four fly outs and seven pop-outs, four of the pops caught in foul territory. With that many grounders and pops, you can surmise the Reds were making feeble contact.

True to his word, Barrett made "those other guys" work and was an equal-opportunity employer. Each player in the Braves' lineup had either a putout or an assist, led by first baseman Buck Etchison with 14 putouts and two assists. Second baseman Whitey Wietelman had four assists and two putouts. Left fielder Max Macon was the busiest in the outfield with three putouts. And Barrett kept himself occupied with the glove, recording two assists and two putouts.

Besides keeping pitches to a minimum, Barrett was always ready to deliver.

"Cincinnati writer Lou Smith, with a possible tinge of hyperbole, put it: '(Barrett) is one of the fastest workers in the history of the game,' " Jack Zerby wrote for the Society of American Baseball Research's Games Project. " 'Unlike most pitchers he wastes no time by hitching up his trousers and reaching for the resin bag.' ”

Singles by Gee Walker, with two out in the first inning, and by Eddie Miller, leading off the sixth, were the only things getting in the way of a quick perfect game for Barrett. Miller advanced to second on an unassisted ground-ball out to Etchison for the Reds' only advance into scoring position on the night.

The Braves got Barrett all the runs he needed in the second when Butch Nieman led off with a single, advanced to second and third on ground outs by Stew Hofferth and Etchison, and scored on Dee Phillips' single. Phillips had been purchased from Cincinnati at the end of the 1943 season.

Phillips, who went 3-for-4, also figured in the game's other run. He doubled to deep center with one out in the fifth and came around to score on a three-base error by right fielder Tony Criscola, who "stumbled and fell," according to the Boston Globe, going after a fly by Wietelman.

Tommy Holmes was the other big bat in the game, going 2-for-4. He was stranded in scoring position after his single and Chuck Workman's sacrifice in the sixth, and after he'd doubled in the eighth.

Counts and pitch counts

As for what kind of counts Barrett had on Reds batters -- surely a lot of their at-bats had to be first swings -- I couldn't find any accounts of the game that made specific mention of this. Mainly they just said he threw an average of two pitchers per batter. A reader comment in a forum on the game at baseballfever.com does hint at it.

"I read an article which mentions Barrett's feat and says that he never got behind in the count," it said.

As for that 58-pitch total, that seems to be a certainty, even though this game came way before counting pitches came into vogue.

"Pitch-count recording simply wasn’t routinely done in 1944, but that Barrett used only 58 pitches and that the effort is a record appears in multiple sources," Zerby wrote.

Barrett finished the season with a 12-18 record and 3.18 ERA.

Although Barrett had average career numbers -- 69-69, 3.53 ERA over 11 seasons -- he had his share of highlights beyond his 58-pitch game. Twice he threw one-hitters where he no other batters reached base. And when he went from the perenially lower-rung Braves to the three-time defending league champion St. Louis Cardinals early in 1945, he emerged as one of the better hurlers in the league with a 23-12 record and 3.00 ERA. He led the league in victories, complete games and innings pitched. The following year he appeared on the cover of the April 1 issue of Life magazine.

But make no make mistake, Barrett's ultra-economic outing on Aug. 10, 1944, was his most exciting moment. Even as he kept the excitement to a minimum.

“My biggest thrill without a doubt came in a night game, Aug. 10, 1944, when pitching for the Braves against the great Bucky Walters, I let the Reds down with two hits in beating them with 58 pitches," Barrett said in a 1946 Statesville (North Carolina) Daily Record article. "... Beating Bucky was an added thrill, of course.”