The Best Arm Behind the Worst Bat

The Best Arm Behind the Worst Bat (1909)

Bill Bergen hit .170 for his career and Brooklyn kept running him out there anyway. This is why. In the second game of a doubleheader against St. Louis, the Cardinals tested him eight times. Bergen threw out six. The count was published as seven for most of a century until researchers settled it at six. Either figure tells you what it felt like to lead off first base against him.

Seventeen and Unhittable (1936)

Bob Feller was a farm kid from Van Meter, Iowa who had never pitched in the minor leagues. Cleveland had used him six times in relief when general manager Cy Slapnicka pushed Steve O'Neill into starting him against the Browns. O'Neill had Denny Galehouse warming up before the first pitch, just in case. Feller struck out the side in the first inning and Galehouse sat down. By the end of the afternoon the kid had 15 strikeouts and a 4-1 win, one short of the American League record. He went home that fall to finish his senior year of high school.

Ten Hits in Twenty-Four Hours (1970)

Roberto Clemente went 5-for-5 on Saturday in a sixteen-inning marathon at Dodger Stadium. On Sunday he did it again: three singles, a double and a home run in an 11-0 rout. He was 36, beating up the organization that signed him in 1954 and then lost him in the Rule 5 draft. Only two players in history had ever put together back-to-back five-hit games. Danny Murtaugh said ten hits in two games used to be his own quota for a month.

Twenty-One Years of Getting Away With It (1982)

Everybody knew Gaylord Perry threw a loaded ball. He wrote a book about it and called it Me and the Spitter. What nobody had ever managed was catching him at it, across two decades, 300 wins and thousands of frisked baseballs. At the Kingdome, plate umpire Dave Phillips warned him early, then ejected him. Perry was 43, in his 21st season, and it was the only time it ever happened. Boston won 4-3.