Every Saturday I use the Discogs Randomizer Gizmo to pick a record from my collection and write about it here.
Today is not Saturday, but this week’s spin is on Sunday by design. While the script above states a record is chosen at random each week, there are times when records and historical happenings intersect, and today is one of those days. This also affords me the opportunity to talk about two things I am unreasonably crazy about: baseball and music
The Baseball Project is a supergroup made up of Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Scott McCaughey, Linda Pitmon, and Steve Wynn, I know three of those names are enough to give every Gen Xer reading this a massive music chub. Who knew a good portion of R.E.M. are also crazy baseball fans?
As you may have guessed, they write and play songs all about various baseball things—whether that be players, events, and lingo. They’ve released 4 LPs, 1 EP, and a single. Today, I will be discussing that single, El Hombre b/w Harvey Haddix.
Released in connection with 2012’s Record Store Day, the A-side celebrates El Hombre, Albert Pujols, one of the best to ever play the game. The B-side is what were here to discuss and it happened on this day 65 years ago. The 7 inch single comes packaged with a cardboard sleeve with artwork on one side and die-cut inner sleeve. It also comes with a lenticular 3-D card that switches portraits of Haddix and Pujols as well as featuring a Haddix wind up and pitch in the foreground and a Pujols swing in the background.
For those of you unaware, in Harvey Haddix’s so-called “near perfect” game on May 26, 1959, he pitched 12 perfect innings, but the Pirates of old, much like the Pirates of now, provided no run support. Haddix, no slouch by any means, achieved 12 perfect innings against a Milwaukee lineup that contained Eddie Matthews and Hank Aaron. The Pirates were missing the great Roberto Clemente and Dick Groat in their lineup, which may account for the lack of any offensive punch.1 The Pirates scattered 12 hits over 12 innings, but could not even get one across in support of Haddix, who was seemingly outdueled by Lew Burdette—who also pitched 12 innings. Check that box score, you’ll not see many that odd.
As the song is keen to mention, 13 is never lucky and Haddix’s perfect game was ended by a Don Hoak throwing error followed by a walk off home-run—err—double by Joe Adcock.2 So after 12 innings of scoreless baseball, and who knows how many pitches since this game predated pitch counts, everything unraveled at once for poor Harvey and the Pirates.
The song itself mentions all perfect games throughout baseball history in the chorus, pre 2008, so only 17 at that point. The lyrics argue that Harvey Haddix should be on that list, although Armando Galarraga, for example, probably has a better argument for inclusion on the now 24 perfect games list. Nevertheless, Haddix’s game remains one of the greatest pitched games of all time, and his retiring of 36 straight batters in one game remains a record.
Happy Harvey Haddix day to those that celebrate and go Buccos!
I met Dick Groat in 2012 at a PNC Park SABR meeting. He was a good dude.
There is some consternation as to how this game ended, since they didn’t build MLB ballparks like they do now, Adcock’s three-run home run was ruled a double because Hank Aaron thought the runner ahead of him, Felix Mantilla, was the winning run after seeing the ball hit the fence—a second fence behind the actual ballpark fence.
Crazy that the first Baseball Project album is already 16 years old.
I love this band a whole bunch.