Oct 2 1908 - Best pitching duel ever?

[michael3322]

Perfect flashback: On Oct. 2, 1908, Joss' gem triumphs in Cleveland's greatest pitching duel
By Marc Bona, cleveland.com

A century ago, The Plain Dealer brought the stunning news of the Joss-Walsh duel at League Park to baseball fans throughout Northeast Ohio.

You're a major-league pitcher, and you've just walked off the mound in a late-season, pennant-chasing game on the road. You've thrown a record 15 strikeouts, allowed four hits and one run, and went the distance. The crowd shows its respect and cheers you.

You've won, right? Wrong.

On a cool afternoon at Cleveland's League Park, 100 years ago today, Chicago's Ed Walsh threw that game, and lost. That's because the Naps' Addie Joss was perfect.

It remains one of baseball's greatest pitching performances.

"Walsh was spectacular. Joss was perfect," Clevelander Scott Longert writes in his well-documented 1998 biography, "Addie Joss: King of the Pitchers."

What drew Longert -- and others -- to Joss was a reference in Lawrence Ritter's "The Glory of Their Times." The more he read, he said, the more his intrigue grew.

"I was fascinated with old-time players," said Longert, 54 and a park ranger at the James A. Garfield National Historic Site in Mentor. "The idea that he died so young, the fact that he compared favorably with other pitchers."

The modern era was in its infancy, Cleveland wasn't yet the Indians, and the term "perfect game" hadn't yet been crafted. But excitement filled the stadium and the pages of Cleveland's daily newspapers. All included extensive Page One coverage that focused as much on the series between the second-place Naps and third-place White Sox as it did on the starters -- both of whom would land in the Hall of Fame.

The papers referred to the 1-0 win as the "No hit, no man reached first" game. In the end, the 90-minute duel remains a masterpiece, but both Cleveland and Chicago lost the pennant to Detroit.

Joss, the 28-year-old Wisconsin-born hurler, won 160 games in a career that ended prematurely in so many ways. He died of tubercular meningitis in 1911, just shy of a full 10 seasons -- and the Hall's requirement for consideration. He died in Toledo, where he was a sports editor in the off-season. It took decades of lobbying by family members to earn the distinction, which was awarded in 1978.

His career ERA of 1.89 is second -- to Walsh's 1.82.

Walsh's career spanned 14 seasons, with 1908 being his best: The eastern Pennsylvanian, former coal miner, braced by a then-legal spitter, went 40-15 with a 1.42 ERA.

By accounts, the two were friends, their American League careers overlapping for half a dozen years.

Walsh retired in 1917. On May 26, 1959, Pittsburgh's Harvey Haddix was etching his way into the record books against Milwaukee. Haddix took a perfect game into the 13th inning -- and lost. That night, Walsh died.

It took more than 70 years for perfection on the mound to come to Cleveland. On a cool, damp night in Municipal Stadium, Len Barker stopped Toronto, 3-0, becoming the 10th pitcher to throw a perfect game.

It is such a rare thing; most never get close. After Joss, only 13 have been recorded.

A plaque honoring Joss is nestled as a reminder on a wall at Progressive Field's Heritage Park, steps away from Barker's smaller, signature tribute.

What pitchers Addie Joss (right) and Ed Walsh had to say after their pitching duel, as reported in The Plain Dealer on Oct. 3, 1908:

ADDIE JOSS: "About the seventh inning I began to realize that not one of the Sox had reached first base. No one on the bench dared breathe a word to that effect. Had he done so, he would have been chased to the clubhouse. Even I rapped on wood when I thought of it. I did not try for such a record. All I was doing was trying to beat Chicago, for the game meant much to us, and Walsh was pitching the game of his life. I never saw him have so much. In the third inning with [Joe] Birmingham on third I tried to bunt and actually could not get my bat out in time. In giving credit for my feat that now appears wonderful, don't forget that the boys played grandly behind me, while Larry [second baseman Napoleon "Larry" Lajoie] killed three drives that would have been hits for ordinary second basemen."

ED WALSH: "I am sorry we lost, of course, but seeing that we did have to lose, I am glad that Addie took down a record that goes to so few. It is something to be proud of -- keeping a team like Chicago from reaching first base -- and I guess way down in my heart I was sort of glad when 'Silk' [umpire Francis A. "Silk" O'Loughlin] called [outfielder John] Anderson out in the ninth. It would have made no difference anyway. Yes, I pitched a fairly good game myself, but [Joss] pitched better. Maybe I did strike out fifteen men, but they got four hits off me and we got none off Joss. I passed [walked] a man and Joss passed none. That shows how much better ball he pitched."

SABR Article:
https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/octo...-perfect-game/

Here is the box score from Baseball Reference:
https://www.baseball-almanac.com/box...10021908.shtml

Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addie_...7_perfect_game