The 1950s

            Having explained the methodology in yesterday’s article, we can proceed here directly to an examination of the greatest pitchers duels of the 1950s.

            Almost.

            There were about 12,300 major league regular-season games played in the 1950s.  Retrosheet doesn’t quite have them all, and hasn’t posted everything they have.  I’m working with Retrosheet data here, so I’ve only got data for a little over 9,000 games.   There will probably be another game that will turn up later that should have made this list.  Although this is many less games than we had in the 1980s, the list of pitcher’s duels is just as impressive (or more so) because, in the 1980s, managers would let a pitcher stay in the game until his arm fell off.

            The top pitching matchup of the 1950s, simply in terms of having two great pitchers on the mound, occurred on September 26, 1954 at the Polo Grounds:  Johnny Antonelli against Robin Roberts.   Antonelli was 21-7 that year, 2.29 ERA, and would likely have won the Cy Young Award, had such an award existed.  Roberts was 23-15, 2.96 ERA, and would likely have finished second in the voting.  Without the Cy Young Award, they finished 3^rd and 7^th in the MVP voting—the only two pitchers in the top ten.  Antonelli, presumably being rested for the World Series, which would begin three days later, came out of the September 26 game after two innings, while Roberts stayed in for eleven innings, but the Giants won, 3-2. 

            The worst pitching matchup of the 1950s, based strictly on having starting pitchers that nobody would pay his hard-earned money to watch, occurred in Kansas City on June 20, 1956—Troy Herriage against Bob Wiesler.   Wiesler, pitching for the Senators, finished the season 3-12 with a 6.44 ERA.    Herriage was 1-13 with a 6.64 ERA.  8,250 people turned out to watch a snappy, three-hour, nineteen-minute contest featuring 18 walks, eventually won by the Senators, 5-4.

            In terms of the worst performance by two pitchers in one game, that also would be an A’s game, albeit a Philadelphia A’s game with a Hall of Famer on the mound for Cleveland.  On April 29, 1952, Cleveland met the A’s in Shibe Park, Bob Feller against Alex Kellner.   The Indians scored six in the first and three more in the second off of Kellner, and then three more in the third off of his replacement, Harry Byrd.   Feller, staked to a 14-2 lead after six innings, stayed in the game to the bitter end, although it appears he may have taken the vehicle out of gear at some point.   Feller gave up seven runs in the last three innings, while the Indians also added seven more.   Feller pitched 9 innings and faced 50 batters, giving up 18 hits and 9 runs, but securing a victory by the score of 21-9.

            At some point—if it hasn’t already—this will become almost unreadably repetitious (the game was nothing-nothing through nine innings. ..).    I appreciate your patience, and I like to have the list, even though I’m not claiming it is the most entertaining reading available today.   These are the greatest pitcher’s duels of the 1950s, as I have ranked them:

            10.   Cleveland at Detroit, April 29, 1956, Bob Score against Billy Hoeft.

            Hoeft and Score had both been 16-game winners in 1955 and would both be 20-game winners in 1956.   Hoeft was making his first start of 1956; Score was already making his third.  The game was nothing-nothing through nine innings (I warned you), Hoeft having given up 8 hits, and Score only two.    Hoeft pitched a scoreless tenth inning, and Score opened the bottom of the tenth by striking out the first two hitters, giving him 13 for the game.  At that point Bill Tuttle hit a walk-off home run, and the Tigers won, 1-0.

            9.  June 2, 1952, Cleveland at New York, Bob Lemon against Allie Reynolds.    Reynolds, who finished 20-8 that year with a major-league leading 2.06 ERA, pitched a shutout.  Lemon (22-11 with a 2.50 ERA), gave up only four hits, but the Yankees managed to scratch out a 2-0 victory.

            8.  July 13, 1952, Cleveland at Washington, Mike Garcia against Connie Marrero. 

            Garcia also was 22-11 that year, the same as his teammate Bob Lemon, and had a little better ERA, 2.37 (the second-best in the majors, behind Reynolds.)   Marrero, a 40-year-old Cuban, made 22 starts and completed most of them, going 11-8 with a 2.88 ERA.   Garcia pitched a 2-hit shutout.   Marrero pitched a 4-hit complete game, giving up a run in the second on a triple by Suitcase Simpson and a single by Merl Combs.

            7.  September 11, 1959, Chicago at Baltimore, Barry Latman against Jerry Walker. 

            One of the most interesting games on the list, this was the second game of a double-header.   In the first game, Jack Fisher had shut out Chicago and Billy Pierce, winning 3-0.

            Latman and Walker were not great pitchers.   They were just kids.   Latman, 23 years old, threw a wide-breaking curve ball and was kind of famous because, as a high school kid, he had struck up a friendship with Ty Cobb, and continued to correspond with Cobb until Cobb died.   It is unclear whether the anti-semitic Cobb knew that Latman was Jewish.

            Latman was not a rotation anchor for the White Sox, but he had pitched a string of good games over the previous five weeks—a four-hitter with 11 strikeouts on July 31, a three-hit shutout on August 5, a five-hit shutout on August 22, and a win against the Red Sox on August 27 in which he had given up only one run in 8 and a third.   In keeping with the practices of the time, however, he had a remarkably irregular work schedule, mixing starting with relief and coming back from the August 27 win to start again just two days later.   They didn’t think about it then the way we do now.   The managers of the time thought like “Latman is a young pitcher, not yet ready to be a rotation guy, but we can use him in spots against weaker teams and in double-headers, sometimes in relief.   We’ll get him a start when we can.”

            Anyway, Latman was good again in this game.  He loaded the bases with nobody out in the first, but Houdinied out of it, beginning a run of 21 straight outs.  He stayed in the game for 9 1/3 innings, and left with the game scoreless.

Opposing him was 22-year-old Jerry Walker, who had pitched three innings in an All-Star game two months earlier.    Walker pitched a shutout through 9 innings, and 10, and 11.   And 12.   And 13, 14, and 15.   And 16.   The Orioles scored a run in the bottom of the 16^th on a single by Brooks Robinson, and Walker had a win.

But was it worth it?   To a modern fan, it seems crazy to allow a 22-year-old pitcher to face 55 batters, meaning that he probably threw more than 200 pitches.   And, in fact, it does not appear that Walker was ever the same.   Ending his 16-inning shutout with an 11-6 record and a 2.66 ERA, he made two more starts that year, was hit hard both times and lost them both.   He won only 3 games the next year, and was traded to Kansas City after that season for very little value.

Latman, after having pitched 9 and a third shutout innings in this game, did not start again that season.  But this was the way it was done at this time, and we will see other games like this later on the list.

6.  April 19, 1956, Cleveland at Chicago, Herb Score against Jack Harshman.

Harshman pitched a two-hit shutout.   Score had a no-hitter through seven innings, but gave up a run in the 7^th on a walk to the great Minnie Minoso, another walk, a wild pitch and a sac fly.  He also finished with a two-hitter, striking out ten, but took a 1-0 loss.

5.   August 13, 1954, Chicago at Detroit, Jack Harshman against Al Aber.

            I wrote about this game on this site a few months ago.   Harshman and Aber matched up in a nothing-nothing shutout through fifteen innings.    Harshman pitched a clean 16^th, but Aber weakened in the bottom of the 16^th, and surrendered an RBI triple to Minnie Minoso.   Both Aber and Harshman came in to pitch in relief just two days later, August 15, Harshman pitching two more shutout innings.   Neither Aber nor Harshman seems to have suffered any ill effects from the hard usage.

            4.   August 15, 1956, New York at Brooklyn, Johnny Antonelli vs. Don Newcombe.

            Newcombe was the NL MVP in 1956 and won the Cy Young Award, and Antonelli was a 20-game winner.  

            On August 10, 1956, Antonelli was 9-12 for the last-place Giants, who had collapsed in a quivering heap after winning the World Championship in 1954.   Antonelli then began a remarkable streak, winning 11 games in a month and a half to finish at 20-13.    This game was the best of them, a two-hit shutout with 11 strikeouts; his ERA during the 13-game run was 1.32.    Willie Mays homered for the only run.   Newcombe gave up only three hits himself.

            3.  May 26, 1959, Pittsburgh at Milwaukee, Harvey Haddix against Lew Burdette.

            This, of course, is one of the most famous games of the 1950s, as Harvey Haddix pitched 12 perfect innings before bowing in the 13^th.

            In an earlier version of the Pitcher’s Duel formula I had this ranked as the greatest pitcher’s duel of the 1950s, and after revising the formula I was disappointed to realize that it no longer was.  I debated long and hard whether I should “fix” the formula to get the result that more people would expect—that result being that this was the greatest pitcher’s duel of the decade, if not the greatest of all time.

            I ultimately decided that I should not.   I’ll explain why in a moment.

            2.  May 21, 1957, Baltimore against Detroit, future pitching coach Ray Moore against future Senator Jim Bunning.

            Bunning dominated for 13 innings, but gave up a solo homer in the third to his opposite number, Ray Moore, who was a decent hitter.  The Tigers got the run back in the sixth on a walk, an Al Kaline double and a sac fly.

            The game was 1-1 through 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13, Bunning and Moore matching zeroes.   Bunning left after 13 to go father a couple of children, and Paul Foytack (another starter) took over for him.   Moore stayed in through 15, the game still tied at one.  Mike Fornieles pitched the 16^th, and gave up an un-earned run when a passed ball stitched together two singles into a run.  Detroit won it, 2-1 in 16 innings.

            1.  May 22, 1959, San Francisco at LA, Johnny Antonelli against Don Drysdale.

            This game, which occurred just four days before the Haddix/Burdette duel, is of course nowhere near as famous as Haddix’ game—but was it actually better?

            Well, neither pitcher in this game was as good as Haddix was on that day.   Perhaps no pitcher ever was.   That’s a key part of what we’re measuring here—but it is not the whole.  This chart compares the four pitchers on those two days:

            Haddix and Burdette pitched as well as Drysdale and Antonelli, but not obviously better.  

Haddix and Burdette gave up 13 hits; Drysdale and Antonelli, 10.  Haddix and Burdette struck out 10 batters; Drysdale and Antonelli, 18.

            Haddix and Burdette were fine pitchers—but Antonelli and Drysdale were better pitchers, having better years:

            The Dodgers won this game with two out in the bottom of the 13^th, on a single by Gil Hodges.    The Haddix/Burdette game was certainly a fantastic pitcher’s duel—but I don’t really see that it was a better pitcher’s duel than Antonelli against Drysdale, four days earlier.  Research is not supposed to simply confirm what we already knew; sometimes it is supposed to argue for some other conclusion.    I’m not saying that mine is the only right answer, but this is the right answer for me.