36 Up, 36 Down, But Still Lost

Hey baseball fans!

In honor of the perfect games last season, I wanted to blog about a very strange ALMOST-perfect game:

Harvey Haddix , of the Pittsburgh Pirates, was nothing special, but on one day, he happened to just be a pitcher who pitched a perfect game through 12 innings, but gave it up in the 13th.

It was May 26th, 1959, Pirates vs. Braves. Haddix was pitching masterfully through nine innings, not giving up a hit, walk, or error. However, the opposing pitcher,  Lew Burdette , held the Pirates scoreless through nine, too. So into extras it went, tied 0-0.

After 12 innings, it was still tied 0-0, and still, Haddix was pitching a perfect game. In the bottom of the 13th, an error by  Don Hoak  of the Pirates allowed  Felix Mantilla  to reach first, ending the perfect game, but the no-hitter was still in tact.  After a sacrifice bunt and an intentional walk to  Hank Aaron ,  Joe Adcock  hit an apparent home run, ending the no-hitter and the game. However, in all the confusion, Aaron left the base paths and was passed by Adcock for the second out and the Braves won 2-0. Eventually, the hit was changed to a double by the ruling of NL president, Warren Giles; only Mantilla’s run counted, for a final score of 1-0, but Haddix still lost. Although Haddix lost, it is considered by many to be the best pitching performance ever.

Matt Nadel is a 13 year old baseball history kid blogger from Springfield, NJ who writes two baseball blogs under the name, Baseball with Matt.  Matt started  his original blog  back in April 2012 when he saw that a lot of his friends didn’t know anything about baseball history and he thought that a blog would be a fun way to educate kids and adults about baseball history.  After posting nearly 85 times, he was introduced to John Thorn, the official historian for MLB, and John liked Matt’s blog and arranged for Matt to have  his own Pro Blog on MLB , making Matt the youngest Pro blogger on MLB.com. You can also follow Matt on Twitter @BaseballwMatt.  Baseball with Matt is a member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.