A near-historic game tonight! Perfect game broken up by a clean single through the shift in the 9th. Too bad there weren’t 2 out, because that would’ve been even more historic.
But there’s another story here that makes this one they’ll talk about years from now if they were in the stadium.
Seems just a week ago, these same two teams played each other eleven hundred and some miles to the south. That night, the score was almost reversed – 11- 0 tonight, 0-13 last week – and the team with 0 didn’t have any hits entering the top of the ninth in either game.
Last week, the game finished 13-0, and 0 didn’t get any hits the whole game!
And 13 was playing the game as a tribute to one of their own, now gone.
And the game was played on 7-13, and 7-13 was Now Gone’s birthday.
And . . . And 13 scored 7 runs in the first and 13 overall…7-13!
But 13 used 2 pitchers, so there’s either an asterisk or a separate listing in the record books.
So what’s so near-historic, you ask?
Last week’s pitcher who got shelled for 8 is tonight’s pitcher who finished with a complete game 1-hit shutout, which is almost as rare these days, and how’s that for proof there’s karma in baseball?
Beisbol!
Lemme tell you, I once listened on my transistor to Vinny call one of Koufax’s complete game 1-hit shutouts.
What’s so historic about that, you ask?
It was the one he lost!
(Hey, everything I tell you about Koufax is true, even if it didn’t happen.)
The Billy Pulpit 