Jim Bunning’s Father’s Day Perfection

I received a terrific birthday gift form my wife, Cindy, yesterday: an autographed, framed photo of Jim Bunning in the process of making the last pitch of his perfect game against the New York Mets on Father’s Day, June 21, 1964. We are just a few days away from the 50^th anniversary of that event, and it brings back special memories for me, at the time a just-turned 17 year-old about to begin my senior year of high school. I saw the game, sort of.

In those pre-cable days, there were not nearly as many games broadcast on television. In fact, the only day you could really depend on a televised Phillies game was Sunday. My memory of the game is also in black and white, because, though color TV had been invented, very few households that I frequented had a color set.

I watched the first three innings of the game at home with my dad on our old console Philco TV, while simultaneously getting dressed for our Father’s Day trip for Sunday dinner at my grandparent’s house. There was no excitement about the game yet, just a typically good outing from Bunning. After three innings, my dad, mom, two sisters and brother all climbed into the copper-colored Ford station wagon for the trip from Levittown to the Juniata Park section of Philly.

Interstate I-95 had just opened from Bristol down to Castor Avenue in Philly, so the ride that formerly took an hour or more, had been reduced to about 45 minutes - good thing. We listened to three innings of the game in the car and by then things were getting exciting. We knew by then that Bunning had a perfect game. Not that the announcers were any help. Holding to long held tradition, announcers Bill Campbell, By Saam and Richie Ashburn refused to mention what was happening.

You would get little clues, like “Looking up at the scoreboard, we see nothing but zeroes for the Mets.” Or, “Bunning is really pitching a classic today.” But no one said the words “no-hitter” or “perfect game.”

In the dugout, Bunning did not stand on tradition. He was chatting about the perfecto from the fifth inning on. Johnny Callison (who would homer in the game) said, “You don’t talk about a no-hitter right? But [Bunning] was going up and down the bench telling everybody what was going on. Everybody was trying to get away from him, but he was so wired he would follow us around.”

I clambered out of the car and ran into my grandparents’ house, waving a quick, “Hello”, to my grandmother in the kitchen and making a beeline for the den, where I knew I would find my grandfather sitting is his red leather Morris chair, smoking a Lucky Strike, and watching the Phillies game. Sure enough as I entered the smoke filled room, he said, “You better sit down, kid, Bunning’s got a no-hitter going.”

It’s a perfect game, Dad.” My father said, joining me on the couch.

“Right. How about that.”

In those days, perfect games were so rare that few people were fully aware of them. Even the home plate umpire, Ed Sudol, did not realize Bunning was pitching a perfect game until he was told so by Mets announcer, Ralph Kiner, after the game. “Do you mean I umpired a perfect game?”, he asked.

It had been eighty-four years since a perfect game in the National League. That one was pitched by a young right-hander named John Montgomery Ward for the Providence Greys. In 1956, Don Larson of the Yankees famously pitched a perfecto in the World Series, but in the American League the last regular season perfect game was in 1922. In 1964, perfect games were the rarest of all baseball feats.

On the television it was the bottom of the seventh and Bunning was 9 outs away. Pesky Ron Hunt of the Mets ripped a ball to third that was fielded nicely by rookie Richie Allen and Bunning was 8 outs away. Hunt’s smash was one of only two hard hit balls by the Mets all day. In the fifth, while I was in the car listening on the radio, Phils’ second baseman, Tony Taylor, made the play that saved the day. Met catcher, Jesse Gonder, hit a hard two-hopper to Taylor’s left. Tony dived, snagged the ball, leapt to his feet and threw out Gonder at first.

Bunning made easy work of the Mets in the eighth. In the ninth he knew he would face two left-handed pinch hitters, George Altman and John Stevenson. Altman was a powerful, dangerous hitter. Bunning hoped to get Altman before Stephenson. This is how Bunning told it after the game.

I knew if I got Stephenson up there with two out, I had it. I knew I could get him out on curve balls, no matter what. Altman, I wasn’t so sure of. I didn’t know if I could still jam him with the ball.

Bunning retired the first hitter in the ninth, former Phil Charley Smith, on an easy pop-up to defensive replacement Bobby Wine at short. Then, as he hoped, George Altman strode to the plate. My grandfather muttered a quick, “Uh, oh.” I was too nervous to speak.

At this moment my grandmother yelled back from the kitchen, “Dinner’s ready.” Her call was greeted by a chorus of male voices young and old, “Not now!”

Altman launched a high fly ball to right that Johnny Callison chased, but it drifted into the stands, foul. Strike one. Altman fouled off the next pitch. Strike two. Bunning next delivered a curve ball that looked like it stopped half way to the plate. Altman swung hard and early and missed. Five curve balls later John Stephenson became Bunnings 10^th strikeout victim and the perfect game was complete.

Bunning slapped his pitching hand to his mitt, while what Mets announcer Bob Murphy called his “happy teammates” came out to congratulate him. The celebration was mild by today’s standards, but it was clear that Bunning knew what he accomplished.

And so did I. I watched a perfect game, even if only on TV, on Father’s Day, with my father and my grandfather.

We all adjourned to dinner with plenty to talk about.

To top it off, later that evening we all sat around the TV to see Jim Bunning, local hero, appear on the Ed Sullivan Show. Things were good in Phillies land.

A little later in the year of 1964, things were not so good, but that is a story for another day.