Brushes with perfection- tickets to near no-hitters and perfect games

[Scott Garner]

In response to Perezfan Mark's question:

"Do you have the Armando Galarraga Ticket from when he was "jobbed" a couple of years ago? I've been meaning to ask about this, and the Harvey Haddix game as well. Even though neither qualifies as a No-Hitter, it seems like they'd make interesting additions to your incredible collection."

Here are tickets to some of the games where pitchers came within an eyelash of greatness only to have history snatched from them....

1) Harvey Haddix's 12 perfect inning masterpiece vs. the Milwaukee Braves on May 26, 1959. Many baseball experts believe that this was the greatest game ever pitched.

The story behind how I came to own this ticket is almost as great as the ticket itself! Around 1999, a sometimes Milwaukee collector/ dealer went to an estate sale and was looking around at what they had out front of the house. The people running the sale mentioned thast there were a few more items in the house. The guy looked around and didn't spot anything that caught his eye. On a whim, he climbed down the stairs into the basement where he discovered that the incinerator was open and burning. Next to the incinerator was a small box of old Milwaukee Braves to be burned. He grabbed the box and brought them up to the people running the estate sale. He told them that he wanted to buy the box of tickets. They responded: "Why? That's just trash that we're going to incinerate..." He bought the tickets for virtually nothing and literally saved the 3 nicest Harvey Haddix near perfect game stubs known in the hobby from burning! Mine is the nicest of the three and I bought it from the guy that discovered them, with a major assist from my long time Milwaukee collector friend Ted Sternemann. Thanks Ted! This continues to be a highly sought after ticket by collectors. I estimate that only a small handfull of these that survived this historic game....

2) Montreal Expos pitcher Mark Gardner pitched 9 no-hit innings, only to lose to the LA Dodgers 1-0 on July 26, 1991 at LA. Ironically, fellow Expos pitcher Dennis Martinez pitched a perfect game two days later in LA on July 28....

3) Montreal Expos picher and possible HOF'er Pedro Martinez pitched 9 inning of perfection, but surrendered a hit in the 10th inning. Close but no cigar, the Expos do win this one 1-0. Ironically, Pedro's brother Ramon Martinez ends up pitching a no-hitter of his own a month later on July 14, 1995....

4) Finally, the mother of all close one's. Armando Galarraga pitches what absolutely should have been a perfect jame, but AL umpire Jim Joyce blows an obvious play at 1st base on the 27th out of the game. As Perez fan Mark says, Galarraga got "jobbed".

Here's a great story about this game and what followed. I watched this Tigers game live on TV at home with my family (not uncommon in our house!) and you wouldn't have believed how loud the groans and screams were from 4 people when this happened!

I was so pissed that one of my Tigers lost an obvious perfect game that I e-mailed Bud Selig the following day. Much to my surprise, Bud Selig (The Master of Inaction), actually responded to my e-mail with a personal letter that I received a couple weeks later. Please see the scan. I have since managed to get both Armando Gallaraga and umpire Jim Joyce to sign this letter. A great family momento of one of the ultimate sports disappointments, but ended up becoming one of the great lessons in sportsmanship. Note how many times Selig uses the word "situation". I think he likes this word. A letter writer, he ain't!

Finally, my 10 year old baseball playing son, Sam and I attended a dinner benefitting CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) athletics where umpire Jim Joyce was the key note speaker. OT- Sam's team won the 5th- 6th grade CYO Championship and tournament in 2011 and I was one of the coaches. Sam and I were fortunate enough to speak to Mr. Joyce alone about CYO sports and the Galarraga game for 10 minutes prior to him going on stage. Jim Joyce is a humble, caring man and both of us will always cherish this conversation. Ironically, Joyce was a pitcher himself in CYO sports and high school athletics. He actually pitched a perfect game in high school. Pretty cool! After the dinner there was a live auction as a fundraiser. I was fortunate enough to win Jim Joyce's signed actual locker plate from Comerica Park the night that the Galarraga "Nearly Perfect" game occured. A great momento of the game, and our conversation with Mr. Joyce. He still blew the call though!!

Enjoy!

[D. Broughman]

That is a GREAT letter and story. Thanks for sharing.

[David Atkatz]

Trophies should always be bigger than their recipients!

[Jay Wolt]

Scott, what a great read, very enjoyable!

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by David Atkatz

Trophies should always be bigger than their recipients!

Absolutely!! I was amazed that this trophy looked like the Stanley Cup!!

[barrysloate]

Scott- that's a wild story about the Harvey Haddix ticket stubs. Why do people throw out stuff like that? It's not like those tickets were taking up a lot of space.

[mr2686]

Hey Scott, how about a sub-sub catagory of pitchers that had no-hitters with 2 outs in the ninth. I believe Dave Stieb actually had 3 of those, and of course Bill Bevens in the 1947 world series.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Scott- that's a wild story about the Harvey Haddix ticket stubs. Why do people throw out stuff like that? It's not like those tickets were taking up a lot of space.

Barry,

I agree!! Stuff like this drives the collector in us nuts. I also believe that the background story behind how you come to own certain items is the best part about collecting.....

Thanks!

[perezfan]

Wow! Great stuff, Scott...

That personalized letter from Selig is off the charts, and what a great idea to have Galarraga and Joyce both sign it!

Also, you may have answered this before.... But where do you get those small cameo photos of the players? Never seen those before... thanks!

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by perezfan

Wow! Great stuff, Scott...

That personalized letter from Selig is off the charts, and what a great idea to have Galarraga and Joyce both sign it!

Also, you may have answered this before.... But where do you get those small cameo photos of the players? Never seen those before... thanks!

Thanks Mark! I was actually asked this exact question by King of Clout Jimmy in this months December pickups. Here's how I responded:

Hey Jimmy,
Those cameo type photos I make myself. It's something that I came up with to better display my no-hit tickets.

I collect no-hit pitcher postcards (signed preferrably), some team issued, some Burke/Brace, some actual RPPC or 3 x 5 photos. Mostly I prefer B/W, but I do have some that are in color when I can't find one in B/W.

With tickets in my no-hitter collection, I manufacture these cameos by making color copies of these postcards and diminish or enlarge the image to custom "fit" the cameo portion. I make color copies of B/W to get better quality copies. Finally, I use a cameo shape template to cut out the image and mount it with glue stick to a white, unlined 3 x 5 index card.

When you look at my no-hitter ticket collection, I have the tickets in toploaders with a second top loader behind it with the photo cameo card in a toploader facing forward, with a signed 3 x 5 or GPC signature of the pitcher on the backside of the cameo. My no-hitter tickets are stored in albums in chronological order in 3 pocket pages. It makes for a great way to store them and look through them as a collection.

It takes a little time to do this when you are starting from scratch, but I have been working on these cameos as a project over the last 2-3 winters.

What can I say, winters are long around here, and I guy with too much time on his hands gets board...

[doug.goodman]

Wow. Amazing stuff.
Doug

[Scott Garner]

Thanks Dynarl, Jay and David and Doug! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Here's a picture of the CYO dinner program where Jim Joyce was the keynote speaker in Jan., 2011 and one more picture of my son Sam in action on his SJA Warriors championship team. At this age kids play several positions. Sam is a pretty great catcher despite being a left handed thrower. He threw several runners out at 2nd base. He will be one of the starting pitchers on 2012's version of this team. Being a southpaw pitcher has its advantages...

Happy holidays to all on net54!