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This Day In Sports…June 3, 1995, 30 years ago today:
Montreal Expos ace Pedro Martinez has a perfect game broken up in the 10th inning when the San Diego’s Bip Roberts leads off with a double. Martinez had a chance to make history with baseball’s first extra-innings perfect game, but Roberts’ shot into right field was clean. “It was a lucky hit to a lucky spot,” Roberts told reporters after the game. (Martinez and the Expos were able to win the game 1-0.) The future Hall of Famer was only in his third full season in the majors—he’d go on to win 219 career games against just 100 losses in 18 seasons.
The only other pitcher ever to go into extra innings with a perfect game was Pittsburgh’s Harvey Haddix in 1959. Haddix made it through 12 innings against the Milwaukee Braves at County Stadium. But in the bottom of the 13th, a throwing error allowed Felix Mantilla to reach third base. Joe Adcock walked it off with a double for a 1-0 Braves win, costing Haddix not only the perfect game, but the victory as well.
The most recent breakup of a perfect game came in 2022, when Dave Rasmussen of Tampa Bay had one going into the ninth. Rasmussen had needed only 79 pitches to mow down the first 24 Baltimore Orioles he faced. But the 25th, Jorge Mateo, led off the ninth with a first-pitch double down the third-base line. Mateo later scored on a wild pitch, but Rasmussen did finish with a one-hitter in the Rays’ 4-1 victory.
The most heartbreaking bust-up of a perfect game came 15 years ago Monday, when Detroit’s Armando Galarraga was spotless with two outs in the ninth inning at Comerica Park. Then Cleveland’s Jason Donald rolled a ground ball wide of first base. Galarraga covered first and took the throw from Jose Cabrera, beating Donald to the bag. But in one of the most infamous missed calls ever, umpire Jim Joyce called Donald safe. That was the only hit Galarraga allowed over nine innings. Galarraga and Joyce met afterward and Joyce, in tears, apologized for missing the call, receiving the lineup card from Galarraga the next day in a symbolic gesture from both sides.
By the way, in the basic no-hitter department, there’s been only one time in major league history that a bid has been broken up by a walk-off home run. And there was a former Boise Hawk at both ends of the story. In 2017, Rich Hill of the L.A. Dodgers had taken the bid for his first no-hitter into the bottom of the 10th of a scoreless game in Pittsburgh after having a perfect game spoiled by an error in the ninth. The leadoff batter was Josh Harrison, who hit a homer to win the game 1-0 for the Pirates in shocking fashion. Hill was the first pitcher since Martinez to take a no-hit bid into extra innings. He played in Boise in 2002 and 2003; Harrison was a Hawk in 2008.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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