My Final Outing
I’m on full rest. In fact, I’ve had too much rest.
My son’s 6U baseball season concluded a couple weeks ago, marking an end to his time in the only league where everyone is always safe, no one keeps score, but everyone always scores. Even the parents behave.
It began off a tee. With time and practice, we graduated to coach-pitch.
Did someone say coach-pitch? This righty had been warming in the pen for a good six years.
The boys got better. They began to make hard contact, field cleanly, and throw the ball accurately to first. The ever-flowing rotation of first basemen started catching what came their way. The boys shared in the individual and team achievements, savored the thrill of victory in the post-game base races, and felt the joy of camaraderie over snack bags.
We tell our kids that the most important thing is to have fun. I began the season believing that fun would be the antidote to the unhealthy level of competitiveness in youth sports. But was I demonstrating fun or prescribing it?
Baseball, big picture, is all kinds of fun. Learning the various discrete skills that the game requires, however, can be painful and frustrating. So many of the actions are unnatural.
After a few practices, I became more careful with my words. I realized that “let’s go have some fun” and “pay attention to the ball” sent mixed messages. Turns out some of the best coaching advice came from ex-girlfriends years ago: “Stop talking.”
With a glove on my left hand and a four-seam grip in my right, I could let the game do the talking. During any given three-inning game, I might throw 90 pitches (mostly) over the plate. What I really loved, though, were the innings when my pitch counts would have made Greg Maddux jealous.
The Immaculate Collection
When John Clarkson of the Boston Beaneaters struck out the side on nine pitches, do you think anyone took note of what had just happened? Most likely, the Philadelphia Quakers had no idea that, on June 4, 1889, they swung and missed their way into immortality.
Clarkson, who was eventually voted into the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee for his dominance in an early era of baseball, had registered the game’s first immaculate inning.
Since then, the feat has occurred 114 times. It wasn’t until the 21st century, though, that a phrase was coined to describe a pitcher striking out the side on the minimum nine pitches.
I was there when Buddy Carlyle of the Braves posted an immaculate inning on July 6, 2007, setting down Khalil Greene, Russell Branyan, and Jose Cruz on nine pitches. I have no recollection of the moment.
I was there when Wade Miley struck out three Rockies batters (including pitcher Drew Pomeranz) on nine pitches. I have no recollection of the moment.
I was also there when the Chicago White Sox visited Petco Park in June 2005. I remember those games very well, and not because they won the World Series that year — a fact that everyone now knows because of the pope.
(Let’s digress for a moment. There’s a non-zero chance that Pope Leo XIV reads Warning Track Power. Okay, carrying on.)
White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper, who was with the team from 2002-2020, preached pitching to early (weak) contact. I remember discussing and debating the philosophy with colleagues throughout that series, during which Padres batters faced starters Jon Garland, Mark Buerhle, and Freddy Garcia.
At the end of the season, Garland had thrown 221 innings, Buehrle 236.2, and Garcia 228. Yes, it was a different era, but those innings counts put each of them in the top eight of the AL in ’05.
Pitching to early contact suggests a level of efficiency that even the immaculate innings can’t claim.
Sandy Koufax, Max Scherzer, and Chris Sale are the three pitchers to notch immaculate innings three times in their careers. There’s a good chance Koufax didn’t know what he had accomplished at the time.
Players whose careers spanned the ’90s into the early 2000s told me there wasn’t much talk about it during their playing days. As the game has become more obsessed with swing and miss over efficiency, though, it makes sense. Okay, nine straight strikes is cool. But three pitches, three up, three down; that’s perfection. That’s some early contact.
One, Two, Three
The first three-pitch inning didn’t occur until the 20th century. Addie Joss, another pitcher who found his way to enshrinement via the Veterans Committee, is credited by some sources with accomplishing the feat in 1903. The records are iffy, but we won’t let them get in the way of a good story.
Walter Johnson pulled off four three-pitch innings in his career; no one else has done it more than twice. Most recently, Dodgers reliever Tanner Scott picked up a save with a three-pitch inning against the Phillies on April 5, just about one month ago. Curiously enough, that inning began with a leadoff single by Bryce Harper.
Alec Bohm then grounded into a double play on the next pitch, and Max Kepler lined out one pitch later. All in the spirit of early contact.
From the arbitrary pitching rubber of this past Little League season, I wasn’t changing speeds, cutting my fastball, or painting the black. My goal was finding the barrel. Repeatedly.
Some innings may have been immaculate if we actually kept track of strikes. Some innings, though, I pitched (and the boys hit) like I was double-parked. One time, I actually was.
As the season wore on, the boys began to teach each other the game. They called out what to do with the ball if it was hit their way. They developed trust in each other.
It’s funny what can happen when the adults take a step back — and listen. We left them alone. They had fun.
Tomorrow, we’re talking Rockies.