If you attended Sunday's tribute to the greatest moments in Phillies history, cherish the video because it's unlikely that the team will ever have another giveaway that comes close to this one. The video clips and the introductions of some of the players connected with those moments made for a memorable afternoon.
For this writer, the day was special because I had an opportunity to chat with a pair of Hall of Fame pitchers.
Jim Bunning closed out his playing career in Philadelphia in 1970 and '71, but it was his exploits in the mid-1960s that helped get him enshrined in Cooperstown. In four years with the Phillies, the right-hander won 74 games, including three straight 19-win campaigns. During the same span, the workhorse averaged nearly 300 innings pitched and 248 strikeouts per season, and his earned-run average dropped steadily from 2.63 in 1964 to 2.29 in 1967.
Bunning was honored for the perfect game that he hurled against the New York Mets on June 21, 1964. Now a U.S. senator from Kentucky, the former pitcher says he doesn't think about his feat "unless somebody brings it up."
On Sunday, a crowd of reporters brought it up, and the senator obliged by recalling his memories.
"It was a combination of things," Bunning said of the first perfect game in National League history. "I made some mistakes and got away with them, but that happens in every game. Nobody's perfect with their location every time out, but as the game went on, I got better location, and I didn't make any mistakes after the fifth inning. I didn't hang any pitches, and the ones that caught the plate were called strikes, and nobody made any errors."
And the pitcher didn't let the pressure get to him.
"If you relieve the tension between innings, you don't let it build up," he said. "I had lived through a no-hitter before, and everybody gets tense on the bench, and I didn't want that to happen this time."
Bunning's remedy was to break a long-standing superstition against talking about a no-hitter. He became a bit of a chatterbox between innings.
"Sure," he remembered, "because just three weeks before, I had gone into the eighth inning with a no-hitter against Houston, gave up a hit and then blew the lead. I didn't want that to happen again."
How did his teammates react to the taboo talk?
"They kind of got scared away," said the senator. "And the manager (Gene Mauch) kind of stayed in the corner (of the dugout) and didn't say anything during the game."
When he finished his career, Bunning was the first pitcher since Cy Young to collect more than 100 wins in both the National and American leagues. He also threw no-hitters in both leagues. His final stats include 224 wins with 2,855 strikeouts and a career ERA of 3.26.
Robin Roberts will always be connected to the Whiz Kids who won the pennant in 1950 only to be swept by the New York Yankees in the World Series. During that campaign, Roberts began a string of seasons unsurpassed to this day by anybody in red pinstripes.
For six straight years (1950-55) the right-hander won at least 20 games and averaged 323 innings pitched and 160 strikeouts each season. He wrapped up a 19-year career in 1966 with 286 wins and a 3.40 ERA with 2,357 strikeouts.
The sturdy hurler also apparently liked to finish what he started. Roberts had 305 complete games, including one stretch over a two-year period when he threw 28 straight.
"(Warren) Spahn used to say that I had it in my contract that they couldn't take me out of a game," said Roberts. "The only reason that I pitched so many complete games was because nobody came out to take the ball away from me. That's hard to believe, but that's just the way it was."
These days, a starter is expected to get his team into the seventh inning with a lead and let the bullpen take over.
"Complete games is the most overrated stat in the world," said Roberts. "I like the way they do it now. Pitchers today throw a little between starts to stay sharp, and they're rested more. We used to pitch with shorter rest (periods), and I used to relieve occasionally between starts. It wasn't smart (to do it that way) then, and it's not smart now, but it was just the way the game was played."
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