WORCESTER—Despite a delayed train and a little rain, J. Lee Richmond still managed to have a perfect day in Worcester on June 12, 1880.
On that day, 144 years ago, the 23-year-old left-handed pitcher and Brown University student etched his name in the record book by throwing professional baseball’s first perfect game, a 1-0 win by the National League’s Worcester Worcesters over the Cleveland Blues at the Worcester Agricultural Fairgrounds.
Also known as Driving Park, the Fairgrounds were located in the area of present-day Sever Street at the site of the former Becker College campus in Worcester. Today, a monument marks the spot of Richmond’s heroics.
According to several historical accounts from the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Society of American Baseball Research, Richmond was out all night the prior evening for “graduation festivities and parties” in Providence. The story notes that in the early morning hours of June 12 he played in a class baseball game at 4:30 a.m. before finally going to sleep around 6:30 a.m. At 11:30 a.m. he woke up to catch the train to Worcester, which wound up being delayed. The delay prevented Richmond from eating a meal before the game and did not allow him time to warm up properly.
But nevertheless, Richmond persevered thanks to his curve balls, an off-speed pitch he called the “half-stride ball,” and a rising fastball known as a “jump ball.” The baseball rules at the time allowed only underhand pitching from a flat, marked-out box 45 feet from home plate. Eight balls and not four, allowed a batter to walk to first base and fielders used their bare hands instead of baseball gloves.
Richmond was dominant in the early going but ran into a sticky situation in the fifth inning when Cleveland’s Bill Phillips seemingly hit a single to Worcester right fielder Lon Knight. Acting quickly, Knight fielded the ball and fired it to first baseman Chub Sullivan to retire Phillips for the out before he could reach the bag.
In the eighth inning, a brief rain delay halted the game for a period of less than 10 minutes. When the game resumed, Richmond reportedly dried the ball off with a heap of sawdust and kept getting outs much to the delight of the estimated crowd of 700.
Overall, there have been 24 perfect games in professional baseball history. While Richmond was the first to do it, John Ward of the Providence Grays equaled the feat just five days later on June 17, 1880 against Buffalo in Providence. The next perfect game wasn’t thrown until May 5, 1904 when Cy Young accomplished the task in Boston. The first three perfect games in professional baseball history all took place in New England (Worcester, Providence, Boston). Richmond and Ward each threw perfect games in the National League in 1880. The next perfect game in National League history wouldn’t take place for 84 years until Jim Bunning was perfect in 1964.
A native of Ohio, Richmond played professional baseball for six years before enjoying a career as a physician and teacher in Toledo, where he died in 1929.
Mike Vigneux is a freelance writer in Worcester with more than 20 years of experience in the fields of municipal government, communications, and public relations. An avid fan of all sports, Mike enjoys telling the stories of local athletes and their teams. He holds two degrees from Clark University, a bachelor of arts in Communication and a master of science in Professional Communication. He can be reached at Mikevigs@gmail.com
