What a Week! Including Baseball’s 24th Perfect Game!

What a Week! Including Baseball’s 24th Perfect Game!



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 What a Week! Including Baseball’s 24th Perfect Game!

My baseball history alarm bells went off so many times this week that I thought I was in a four-alarm fire!

On Wednesday, June 28, 2023, Domingo German threw baseball’s 24th Perfect Game in the Yankee’s 11-0 win over the Oakland A’s. It was baseball’s first Perfecto since 2012, eleven years ago. He became the first Dominican Republic player to throw a Perfect game, accomplishing the feat by throwing just 99 pitches while recording nine strikeouts. 

(In the featured photo above, we see the great Cy Young, who threw Perfect Game No. Three on May 5, 1904.) 

German also became the fourth Yankee pitcher to throw a Perfect Game, joining Don Larsen (1956), David Wells (1998), and David Cone (1999). One interesting sidebar is that the Yankees went on to win the World Series each year of their Perfect Games. Will history repeat itself this year?

More Historic Events This Week!

Also during this week, Shohei Ohtani hit two home runs as a pitcher while striking out 10 batters, something that hadn’t happened in the American League since 1963. And then he hit his 14th home run in June, his league-leading 29th of the year, setting a new franchise record. Earlier in the week, the Angels beat the Rockies by the score of 25-1. There has never been a 25-1 score before. The margin of victory was tied for the third-highest in the majors since 1900, behind Texas’s 30-3 victory over Baltimore in 2007, and Boston’s 29-4 victory over the St. Louis Browns in 1950. Yeah, it was quite a week!

A Little Perfect Game History

So amidst all the excitement, let’s use this moment to look back over the history of Perfect Games. You’re probably wondering who the skinny guy with the weird baseball uniform in the photo below is…and why am I featuring him, anyway?

Lee Richmond, Perfect Game No. 1, June 12, 1880

He’s none-other-than Lee Richmond, who threw major league baseball’s first officially recognized Perfect Game on June 12, 1880, while playing for the National League’s Worcester Ruby Legs. The game was vastly different back then. For example, only underhand pitching—from a flat, marked-out box 45 feet from home plate—was allowed, it took eight balls to draw a walk, and a batter was not awarded first base if hit by a pitch. 

Perfect Game: A Rare Event!

Doing a little research, I found that in the 148 years of major league history (1876 to present),   there have been approximately 240,000 games played, and only 24 officially recognized Perfect Games. That means a Perfect Game occurs roughly once every 10,000 games. Doing the math, a given game has about a .01% chance (24/240,000=.0001) of becoming a Perfect Game. For you non-math types out there, that’s one one-hundredth of one percent!)

A list of the 24 Perfect Game pitchers is at the bottom of the post. Check out the gallery to see photos of all of them.

Some interesting Perfect Games trivia:

  • Lee Richmond played professional baseball for only six years and pitched full-time for only three, finishing with a losing record. After the 1883 season, he established a medical practice and later became a high school teacher.
  • The second perfect game was thrown by John Montgomery Ward for the Providence Grays. Remarkably, it came only five days after Richmond’s. They are the only two of the pre-modern era. So should the two Perfect Games from the pre-modern era even be counted? If we eliminate those two, then the math becomes…oh well, you get the idea! 
  • No pitcher has ever thrown more than one Perfect Game.
  • The Perfect Game thrown by Don Larsen in Game Five of the 1956 World Series is the only World Series Perfect Game in major league history.
  • There were three Perfect Games in 2012, with no other year ever having more than two.
  • There have been spans of 23 and 33 consecutive seasons in which not a single Perfect Game was thrown.
  • Seven  Perfect Game hurlers from the modern era are in the Hall of Fame: Cy Young, Addie Joss, Jim Bunning, Sandy Koufax, Catfish Hunter, Randy Johnson, and Roy Hallady.
  • Seven Perfect Game throwers, Cy Young, Jim Bunning,  Dennis Martínez, Kenny Rogers, David Wells, Catfish Hunter, and Mark Buehrle, each won over 200 major league games.
  • Many Perfect Games were thrown by accomplished major leaguers: Roy Halladay won two Cy Young Awards; David Cone won the Cy Young once. Matt Cain is a three-time All-Star and three-time World Series champion. Félix Hernández is a Cy Young Award winner and a six-time All-Star. Mike Witt and Tom Browning were solid major-league pitchers. And, of course, Cy Young is…Cy Young!
  • Four from the modern era were journeyman pitchers who finished their careers with losing records: Don Larsen, Charlie Robertson, Len Barker, and Dallas Braden.
  • Philip Humber had never before thrown so much as a complete game prior to his Perfect Game. With only 16 career wins, he has by far the lowest win total of any Perfect Game pitcher.

List of Pitchers Who Have Thrown Perfect Games:

  1. Lee Richmond June 12, 1880
  2. John Montgomery-Ward June 17, 1880
  3. Cy Young May 5, 1904
  4. Addie Joss October 2, 1908
  5. Charlie Robertson April 22, 1922
  6. Don Larson October 8, 1956
  7. Jim Bunning June 21, 1964
  8. Sandy Koufax September 8. 1965
  9. Catfish Hunter May 8, 1968
  10. Len Barker May 15, 1981
  11. Mike Witt September 30, 1984
  12. Tom Browning September 16, 1988
  13. Dennis Martinez July 28, 1991
  14. Kenny Rogers July 28, 1994
  15. David Wells May 17, 1998
  16. David Cone July 18, 1999
  17. Randy Johnson May 18, 2004
  18. Mark Buehrle July 23, 2009
  19. Dallas Braden May 9, 2010
  20. Roy Halladay May 29, 2010
  21. Philip Humber April 21, 2012
  22. Matt Cain June 13, 2012
  23. Felix Hernandez August 15, 2012
  24. Domingo German, June 28, 2023

Gary Livacari 

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Photo Credits: All from Google search

Information: Excerpts edited from Perfect Game Wikipedia page; and Baseball-Reference

I'm a baseball historian who also enjoys writing. My forte is identifying ballplayers in old photos, and my special interest is the Dead Ball Era.

6 Comments

  1. Thomas L Marshall · July 1, 2023 Reply

    Nice article, Gary. You mentioned Ohtani’s 2 HR’s & 10 KO’s on Tuesday. I went up to Anaheim to witness his feat against my WSox. I was also there on Thursday to see his 3rd HR against us….uggggh. {At least we split the series}. Always has been so coincidental to me; how Cone’s perfect game happened on the same day the Yankees were honoring Larsen’s WS perfecto @ Yankee Stadium. In today’s game, a pitcher has to really keep his pitch count down low in order to achieve a perfect game {or even a CG for that matter}. Keep up the good work. Thnx. “PLAY BALL”

    • Gary Livacari · July 1, 2023 Reply

      Yeah it’s always amazing that David Cone pitched his PG with Yogi and Don Larsen in attendance. Thanks!

  2. Bill Schaefer · July 2, 2023 Reply

    Helluva job on research, Gary! You certainly deserve to have BHCA at the top of the heap by a wide margin! Just three things that come to mind:

    (1) Does it bother anybody that Don Larson’s called third strike to Dale Mitchell for the final out was definitely high?

    (2) We know Cy Young was an amazing pitcher but do you wonder how hard he actually threw a baseball? He pitched in the 19th and 20th century for 22 years until he was 44. But, per 162 games, he averaged only 111 strikeouts per year (yielding only 48 walks per). Do you think he would have hit 85 mph on the gun? Spitter? Emery Ball?
    By the way, Cy was an incredible workhorse and logged five seasons pitching over 400 innings. But he didn’t lead the league in any of those years! Pitchers these days seldom complete more than six innings per start!

    (3) On June 2, Comerica Park, Detroit, 2010, Armando Galarraga pitched what is often called “The 28-out perfect game.”
    After retiring 26 batters with no one reaching first base, Cleveland’s Jason Donald tapped a slow roller wide of first, fielded by first baseman Miguel Cabrera who tossed to Armando covering first. Umpire Jim Joyce called Donald safe. The replay clearly showed he was out. Joyce apologized to Galarraga admitting he blew the call. Trevor Crewe then grounded out to end the game.
    Both pitcher and umpire were cited for their great sportsmanship. But shouldn’t they go back and put it in the books officially as a perfect game? With an asterisk of course.

  3. Gary Livacari · July 3, 2023 Reply

    Great points, Bill, thanks! On the last point, I think something along the lines of what you suggest should be done.

  4. michael keedy · July 3, 2023 Reply

    Deep thinkers in the press corps wondered whether Don Larsen’s perfect WS game was his best work. As easy to answer as that penetrating question might have seemed in ’56, appraisals of this recent gem by the Dominican German are just as obvious, considering it was his very first complete game in the major leagues. As Dr. Schaefer reminds us, the complete game and the dodo bird occupy a shared nook in an obscure museum, Somewhere West of Laramie.

    And yes, Sir Wilhelm, the called strike against Dale Mitchell that ended Larsen’s masterpiece has bothered me for nearly 70 years! This could help to explain my wife’s novel and annoying recommendation that I “get a life.” (What do you think?)

    But no, friend Bill, to your Point No. 3: They shouldn’t tinker with the books after-the-fact. Let Ernie Shore divide his moment of glory with The Mighty Babe! And now, pitching arm in pitching arm. let us both endeavor to “Get a life!” While there’s still time.

    All the best,

    Michael

  5. Steven A Falco · July 3, 2023 Reply

    Thanks for all the info and research you did on perfect games. It’s interesting that so few occurred in the early history of baseball and so few in the dead ball era. I could be that it’s just the numbers. More team, most games more chances as the years went on.

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