Perfection Eluded Morris, Wilcox By One Batter Each

Sometimes I keep score at baseball games. Sometimes I don't. Depends on my mood, where I'm sitting, and — don't tell anyone — the company I am with. Scorekeeping can be great conversation dissuaders.

I kept score one summer evening in July of 1990 at the old ballpark — Tiger Stadium — and I couldn't blame it on the company, because I was alone. I would do that on occasion — pre-wonderful wife — a bachelor who thought a quick jaunt up I-75 from my job downriver to see the Tigers would be a grand time. Always, it was true.

Baseball is a wonderful game because you can see a couple of last-place teams play and still see something you've never seen before, or will see again — a brilliant play, a phenomenal offensive display, a humorous manager ejection — you name it. And I've seen all those, and then some, in over 30 years of sitting my fanny in various locations around Tiger Stadium and Comerica Park.

I saw Tigers catcher Mike Heath go ballistic late in a game in which the Tigers were getting pounded. Heath was behind the plate, and all of a sudden he sprang up like a jack-in-the-box, tore his mask off, and started screaming at the home plate umpire — literally nose-to-nose. I have never seen a player yell that much — and that close — to an official in my life. Heath was promptly ejected, of course. But that outburst always intrigued me because it came out of nowhere. Proof positive that umpires and catchers have ongoing discussions throughout a game.

On another occasion, I was sitting in the lower deck at Tiger Stadium — along the first base line — when I noticed something strange. The teams were about to resume play after the between-innings rest, and the Tigers' centerfielder, Chet Lemon, was AWOL. Missing in action. I kept looking for some sign that someone on the field — player, coach, or umpire — noticed that Lemon was not patrolling his territory. But nobody seemed to be aware. The game was about to resume. I finally said, out loud, to whomever would care to listen, "Lemon's not out there! Where's Lemon? They're gonna start playing!"

Finally, here came Lemon — jogging out to centerfield at a rather brisk pace — and doing something else at the same time.

He was playing with his belt. Care to guess where he had spent the previous several minutes?

I could fill this column up with other tales, but I'll jump instead to my brush with witnessing Tigers immortality.

Morris: unhittable -- almost, in July 1990

Returning to that July evening in 1990, I kept score as the Kansas City Royals — with Kirk Gibson — came to town. Jack Morris, in his last season as a Tiger before escaping to Minnesota, was on the mound for Detroit. Not only did I keep score, I gave it the full treatment — pitch counts, game time temperature, balls and strikes, who the umpires were. The whole works.

The second batter of the game — Kurt Stillwell — singled. He was erased on a double play. Then the Royals started a parade of 1-2-3 innings. Morris was mowing them down. When I kept score and gave the full treatment, I used two writing utensils: a pencil and a pen. The pencil denoted outs. Ink was used for hits. Inning after inning, the Royals' side of the scorecard was filling up with #2 lead. Three up, three down. Right on schedule, inning-by-inning.

By the seventh inning, it was evident that I was about to miss witnessing a perfect game by one batter. So dominating was Morris — he only threw 102 pitches — that the outcome seemed predetermined: the Royals would get nothing else in ink on their scorecard other than that first-inning single. Sure enough, pinch-hitter Willie Wilson struck out to end the ninth and the game. No runs, no errors, no walks. And one hit. But since Stillwell was erased on the double play, it kept the scorecard beautifully symmetrical. Twenty-seven batters Morris faced that night. Everyone had three at-bats. It was almost perfect.

I kept the scorecard. It didn't take me long to locate it in my basement. I even referred to it when writing this piece. Good thing, too, because I had thought Wilson led off the game with a single and was thrown out stealing. Fifteen years will do that to your memory, I suppose. But there it is, still in excellent condition. And with its 26 markings of pencil in the Royals' 27 spaces worth of batting activity.

Sometimes the cool and near-cool stuff, you can see on television — if you're patient enough to stick with a game. I was between sophomore and junior years at Eastern Michigan University, hanging out with my fraternity brothers in "the house", when someone put the Tigers game on the tube. This was circa May, in 1983. Milt Wilcox — one of only two big leaguers born in Hawaii (Mike Lum was the other) — was pitching for the Tigers. The game was on, but in the background. In those days, drinking beer and talking to the sorority girls was always in the foreground.

Wilcox: oh, so close to perfection

Eventually, someone said, "I think Wilcox has a no-hitter going!" The guys quieted down. The girls kept talking. The TV was turned up. Soon, George Kell revealed to us that not only was Wilcox working on a no-no, he was having himself a perfecto. By this time, even the girls stopped talking as the entire roomful — I'm guessing maybe 15 or 20 of us — watched the Tigers-White Sox game, from old Comiskey Park. Up the Sox would go, and down they would come. More of that 1-2-3 stuff.

The game moved into the ninth inning. The first two White Sox hitters were retired. Even the Chicago fans were on their feet, going crazy. They wanted to see a perfect game, too — even if it meant a loss for the home team.

There have been villains in the eyes of Detroit sports fans over the years. Claude Lemieux and Patrick Roy from the hated Colorado Avalanche. Larry Bird, in his heyday of hating the Pistons and demonstrating it with back-breaking performances on the court — and in the most important of games. Mention Rocket Ismail to U-M football fans, and any of them worth their salt will order you out of the room. I was there on a rainy day in 1989 when Rocket — playing for Notre Dame — took two kicks back for touchdowns, enabling the Irish to take the Wolverines to the woodshed. References to the Minnesota Vikings can still make a Lions fan who remembers the '70's cringe and see purple.

If you polled some diehard Tigers fans who are over 35 years in age, and asked them for a villain's name, a bunch of them would come up with Jerry Hairston. I know Milt Wilcox would, for sure.

Hairston was the White Sox's last hope that night in 1983. And he had been cold, sitting on the bench the entire game, when he was told to grab a bat and pinch-hit with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning in a game in which the opposing pitcher had been perfect.

No enviable task, indeed.

But Hairston wasted no time. He swung at Wilcox's first offering. It was a rope, but at first it looked like it might be snared by second baseman Lou Whitaker. But it was hit too hard. Whitaker couldn't reach it, and the ball took a hop to the right of the base and just behind it, before skipping into centerfield.

NO! Our roomful of college students collectively said that word when we saw Hairston's batted ball elude Whitaker. We said some other words, too.

The TV cameras showed Wilcox briefly looking skyward and tossing his arms in the air. It was clear what he meant: "You gotta be kidding." Or maybe, "Oh, fudge."

Hairston: ruiner of perfection

Regardless, Hairston was standing on first base, hands on his hips. Even his own fans shouted and cursed him.

On the very next pitch, Wilcox ended the game by getting the batter to ground out weakly to first baseman Rick Leach.

So Milt Wilcox can literally say he was one pitch away from a perfect game.

I was close, too — to seeing Tigers pitching perfection, in person and on television. Maybe I was the jinx.