WooSox manager Iggy Suarez can be forgiven for not knowing the first perfect game in baseball history was pitching in the city where now manages its Triple-A team.
After all, it happened 146 years ago — there’s a road named after that number, isn’t there? — and the amount of baseball managers, players, coaches and fans who know about Lee Richmond’s historic achievement is probably measured in the hundreds, not millions.
Suarez gets a lot of credit, though, for wanting to see precisely where Richmond pitched that 27-up, 27-down game on June 12, 1880.
So, on a warm Central Massachusetts Friday morning he hitched a ride up to 61 Sever St. and took a short walk to the nearby monument that marks the site of the pitcher’s mound when the Worcesters of the National League played during their brief stay here.
Richmond blanked Cleveland, 1-0, before about 700 fans at the Driving Park, where the diamond was located as part of the spacious Agricultural Grounds, now long gone.
He batted second and outhit the opposition all by himself with a single.
Saurez stopped to take a closer look at the ornate granite stone, then stepped back to take a picture of where baseball history happened.
“This is amazing,” he said. “I had no idea it was here in Worcester, right in our own backyard. “I can’t imagine what it was like back then, and now I’m standing where the mound was for the first perfect game. It’s pretty cool.”
There have been only 24 perfect games pitched in the history of Major League Baseball, which goes back to 1871. Reports on Richmond’s performance never included the words “perfect game” because it had never happened before. The next perfect game, hurled by John Montgomery Ward, happened just five days later.
Fans of that time probably figured that perfect games would be about as common as three-run homers. They figured wrong. Starting with Richmond’s gem there have been 24 perfect games pitched, and 29 Presidents of the United States.
The Agricultural Grounds took up what are now four city streets and were adjacent to Elm Park. The site of the mound was located through research by Brian Goslow, the go-to guy on the Worcesters. The the granite stone was crafted and donated by Tom Rex of Rex Monuments on Webster Street.
Baseball rules have evolved since 1880, but a fan being transported back in time to Sever Street that year would instantly recognize the game as baseball. There was no DH back then, but most pitchers could also hit. Richmond had a single for Worcester.
Most perfect games have a defining play that preserved the outcome. On that day, it was a 9-3 out. Cleveland’s Bill Phillips led off the fifth with with a sharp liner to right, but Worcester outfielder Lon Knight was able to throw him out at first base.
Like most of baseball, perfect games are completely unpredictable and happen due to once-in-a-lifetime circumstances. Philip Humber was 16-23 with a 5.31 ERA but pitched a perfect game.
Roger Clemens, with seven Cy Young Awards on his resume, never pitched a no-hitter let alone a perfect game. Richmond got 27 consecutive batters out and won. Pittsburgh’s Harvey Haddix got 36 consecutive outs on May 26, 1959 in Milwaukee. He lost the perfect game, and the game at large, 1-0, in the 13th.
Great game, but not a perfect one
Pedro Martinez got the first straight 27 outs in a game for the Expos on June 3, 1995, gave up a double to open the 10th and was lifted by Felipe Alou. At least Martinez got the win, 1-0.
On March 14, 2000 in Fort Myers, Martinez worked three perfect innings to start a spring training game and five relievers followed with six more perfect ones to pitcher what is still the only perfect game in spring training history.
“I got my perfect game,” he shouted when heading out of the clubhouse after the final out.
Suarez never played in a perfect game but has managed two in the minors, both of them combined. A couple of times every season a big league pitcher is perfect for a while, or at least takes a no-hitter into the late innings. Same in the minors. How does a manager balance pitch count with history?
“That’s a minute by minute decision,” Suarez said, “because at that point, we have to see what the pitches are like. Are they stress pitches? Is he grinding, or kind of cruising and in control? How he’s reacting, how he’s feeling, that’s gonna tell me what to do.
“You don’t want the pitcher to get hurt, but you don’t get those opportunities very often.”
Suarez spent his career as an infielder. He would have liked to be part of perfect game history, but more like an observer when it came to the last batter.
“I can only imagine what that would be like,” he said. “The last out — that’s the hardest one to get, the last out is — but in a perfect game I’m sure everybody on that field is thinking the same thing — do NOT hit it to me.
“You don’t want to be the one to screw it up.”
Like text messages, pitch counts were not in fashion in 1880. Essentially, the starting pitcher stayed in the game until pronounced legally dead. The Worcesters played 83 games in 1880 and Richmond pitched in 74 of them.
He totaled 590 2/3 innings. That amounts to 1,772 batters retired, including every one of the 27 he faced on June 12, 1880. It is a remarkable achievement that nobody really appreciated at the time but has become a cherished part of baseball history.
As well as this city’s.
Bill Ballou covered the Red Sox for the Worcester Telegram from 1997 through 2018. He has covered pro hockey in Worcester since 1994 and currently does a weekly column for the Worcester Red Sox. Ballou can be reached at vetgoalie@aol.com
