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Perfect Games Photo Gallery
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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:
- Lee Richmond June 12, 1880
- John Montgomery-Ward June 17, 1880
- Cy Young May 5, 1904
- Addie Joss October 2, 1908
- Charlie Robertson April 22, 1922
- Don Larson October 8, 1956
- Jim Bunning June 21, 1964
- Sandy Koufax September 8. 1965
- Catfish Hunter May 8, 1968
- Len Barker May 15, 1981
- Mike Witt September 30, 1984
- Tom Browning September 16, 1988
- Dennis Martinez July 28, 1991
- Kenny Rogers July 28, 1994
- David Wells May 17, 1998
- David Cone July 18, 1999
- Randy Johnson May 18, 2004
- Mark Buehrle July 23, 2009
- Dallas Braden May 9, 2010
- Roy Halladay May 29, 2010
- Philip Humber April 21, 2012
- Matt Cain June 13, 2012
- Felix Hernandez August 15, 2012
- Domingo German, June 28, 2023
Gary Livacari
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Information: Excerpts edited from Perfect Game Wikipedia page; and Baseball-Reference