Almost Perfect: The Heartbreaking Pursuit of Pitching's Holy Grail

by Joe Cox, Jim Bunning (Foreword by)

Overview

The rich, poignant tales of major league baseball’s most hard-luck fraternity—the pitchers of its Almost-Perfect Games

From 1908 to 2015, there have been thirteen pitchers who have begun Major League Baseball games by retiring the first twenty-six opposing batters, but then, one out from completing a perfect game, somehow faltering (or having perfection stolen from them). Three other pitchers did successfully retire twenty-seven batters in a row, but are still not credited with perfect games. While stories of pitching the perfect game have been told and retold, Almost Perfect looks at how baseball, at its core, is about heartbreak, and these sixteen men are closer to what baseball really is, and why we remain invested in the sport. Author Joe Cox visits this notion through a century of baseball and through these sixteen pitchers—recounting their games in thrilling fashion, telling the personal stories of the fascinating (and very human) baseball figures involved, and exploring the historical American and baseball backdrops of each flawed gem.

From George “Hooks” Wiltse's nearly perfect game in 1908 to “Hard Luck” Harvey Haddix’s 12-inning, 36-consecutive-outs performance on May 26, 1959 (the most astounding single-game pitching performance in baseball history) to Max Scherzer’s near miss in 2015, Joe Cox’s book captures the action, the humanity, and the history of the national pastime’s greatest “almosts.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493019502
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	02/01/2017
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Joe Cox is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and is the co-author of multiple sports books, including Fightin' Words: Kentucky vs. Louisville and Voice of the Wildcats: Claude Sullivan and the Rise of Modern Sportscasting. He lives in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Table of Contents

Foreword Jim Bunning vii

Introduction xi

Chapter 1 "There'll Sure Be Rain, for You Heard the Thunder" (July 4, 1908-George "Hooks" Wiltse, Giants) 1

Chapter 2 In Relief of the Babe (June 23, 1917-Ernie Shore, Red Sox) 15

Chapter 3 "150 Pounds of Sheer Guts" (August 5, 1932-Tommy Bridges, Tigers) 29

Chapter 4 Billy the Kid… "What More Do You Want?" (June 27, 1958 Billy Pierce, White Sox) 41

Chapter 5 The Greatest Pitching Masterpiece in Baseball History (May 26, 1959-Harvey Haddix, Pirates) 55

Chapter 6 "You've Got to Be Kidding Me" (September 2, 1972-Milt Pappas, Cubs) 69

Chapter 7 From the Tigers to the Dogs (April 15, 1983-Milt Wilcox, Tigers) 83

Chapter 8 The True Creature and Charlie Hustle (May 2, 1988-Ron Robinson, Reds) 95

Chapter 9 Tomorrow I'll Be Perfect (August 4, 1989-Dave Stieb, Blue Jays) 109

Chapter 10 "It's Just Baseball" (April 20, 1990-Brian Holman, Mariners) 123

Chapter 11 Little Brother No More (June 3, 1995-Pedro Martinez, Expos) 139

Chapter 12 Mr. Almost and America's Tragedy (September 2, 2001-Mike Mussina, Yankees) 153

Chapter 13 Perfectly Imperfect (June 2, 2010-Armando Galarraga, Tigers) 167

Chapter 14 Near Perfection from the Land of the Rising Sun (April 2, 2013-Yu Darvish, Rangers) 185

Chapter 15 Down to a Dream (September 6, 2013-Yusmeiro Petit, Giants) 199

Chapter 16 The Illusion of Control (June 20, 2015-Max Scherzer, Nationals) 213

Afterword 227

Acknowledgments 228

Sources 231

Bibliography 250

Index 255

About the Author 265

Editorial Reviews

12/19/2016
In a meticulously researched 16 chapters, Cox (Fightin’ Words) honors a select and largely overlooked club of 16 major-league pitchers bound by the label that serves as the book’s title. Each of these men came within a whisker of a perfect game only to fall short, sometimes under extraordinary circumstances. Cox holds up their brush with perfection as a mirror for the fallible human condition. The eclectic collection of stories validates the hyperbole as he largely avoids baseball authors’ treacly penchant for romanticizing their sport. The Harvey Haddix, Babe Ruth, and Armando Galarraga games will be known by many; only serious fans will likely remember most of the other 13. Cox adds considerable pre- and postgame context to these almost-perfectos to give his subjects and the national pastime depth. This is most satisfying in his personal interview with Milt Pappas. However, chapters can slow to a crawl with detailed play-by-play accounts, and the self-contained chapters limit Cox’s ability to offer much in the way of a unifying theme beyond the heartbreak of falling short so close to one’s goal. The ambitious effort will appeal to hard-ore fans but not engage new ones. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Joe Cox deftly conjures up the past, allowing us to fully consider a handful of pitchers who deserved a better fate.

Tim Wendel

.. . very well researched baseball fun.

Booklist

As that baseball fanatic Tolstoy almost wrote, ‘All perfect games resemble one another; each imperfect game is imperfect in its own way.’ Cox analyzes the 16 games between 1908 and 2015 in which pitchers retired at least the first 26 batters they faced, only to see perfection elude them.

The New York Times

Almost Perfect is an entertaining and illuminating book that offers up sixteen, er, perfect examples of why falling short of perfection is often far more interesting than actually attaining it.

Dan Epstein

Almost Perfect might be narrowly viewed as an examination of the fine line between immortality and forgetability, but credit Joe Cox for leveraging the topic to expose an array of baseball history, utilizing near-misses as a platform from which to launch in-depth looks at the people and eras that have made baseball what it is today. It’s a terrific look back at some engaging players and moments we might otherwise have overlooked.

Jason Turbow

. . . very well researched baseball fun.

Booklist

As that baseball fanatic Tolstoy almost wrote, ‘All perfect games resemble one another; each imperfect game is imperfect in its own way.’ Cox analyzes the 16 games between 1908 and 2015 in which pitchers retired at least the first 26 batters they faced, only to see perfection elude them.

The New York Times

As that baseball fanatic Tolstoy almost wrote, ‘All perfect games resemble one another; each imperfect game is imperfect in its own way.’ Cox analyzes the 16 games between 1908 and 2015 in which pitchers retired at least the first 26 batters they faced, only to see perfection elude them.

New York Times