My Dad May Have Had the Worst Pitching Performance in Baseball History
I would like to begin here by expressing my love and respect for my father. He was a great man and has always been my hero. He was a loving father and husband, a hardworking healthcare worker and later a teacher, a proud veteran whose service cost him his life, and a coach who was incredibly dedicated to all of his athletes. I have sung his praises and written about him glowingly many times in the past, and will continue to do so for the rest of my life. I love him and miss him every day.
With all of that being said, I would not be an impartial baseball historian if I didn’t disclose that my hero may have had the worst pitching performance in the history of the sport.
The story is something of a legend in our family.
My dad was seemingly a pretty decent ballplayer for a Little Leaguer. He played center field and the middle infield solidly, and had a keen eye at the plate, once leading the league in walks. However, at a time in which kids often switch positions and spend time playing all over the field, he only pitched a handful of times, the last of which was a disastrous outing. He said he walked 10 consecutive batters, and was pulled out of the game without recording a single out. My grandmother claimed he was in tears, and that she had to console him as he left the game. My dad refuted that part of the story, but everyone agreed it was a disaster.
I always thought that it might have been a bit hyperbolic, exaggerated over the years as the memory faded. Maybe he only walked 5 or 6 batters, and only gave up a handful of runs. And certainly he had to have gotten someone out, right?
I didn’t think I would ever know the full story. And then, while poking around on newspapers.com, I noticed that the local paper from the town my father grew up in, Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, had been uploaded to the site. I dug into the archives of the Mahanoy City Record-American, curious to see what might come up when I searched my dad’s name. I was excited to find lots of fun tidbits typical of a small-town paper in mid-Century America; a greeting each year on his birthday, mention of his joining the cub scouts, and even news of his appendectomy. But there amongst the clippings, I found it: the true story of June 27th, 1962, the fateful day my father took the mound.
The truth, unfortunately for my father, was worse than even the story my grandmother had told. He hadn’t just pitched poorly, he’d been terrible. And in context with the performance of the other starting pitcher, it may have been one of the worst pitching outings in baseball history.
My dad’s team, Peca Coal (Mahanoy City was and is a coal mining town) came into the game a meager 2-7 on the season, last place in the six-team league. Their opponent, sponsored by the VFW, was 3-4, and could move into the top half of the standings with a victory.
He took the mound in the top of the first inning, and just as the story went, started letting runners on base. A lot of runners on base. Then runs started piling up. By the time the damage was done, he’d allowed ELEVEN runs without recording a single out. A teammate was brought in for mop up duty, allowing three runs of his own. In all, the VFW team collected 14 runs on 10 hits, as well as 6 errors and a wild pitch by his Peca Coal teammates, all in the first inning. 14 runs was, according to the Record-American, a new record for the most runs scored by a team in one inning.
To make matters worse, following my dad’s mound implosion, the VFW starter, Ronnie Bulcavage, proceeded to pitch what evidently was one of the greatest outings in Mahanoy City Little League history. The Record-American described it as such:
“Ronnie Bulcavage entered the Hall of Fame last evening in Little League circles as he came up with the seasons first no-hit-no-run ball game of the year in pitching the VFW nine to a one-sided 18-0 rout over the hapless Peca Coal Company nine… according to league statistician Jim Holman, the masterpiece was the first pitched in the local circuit since back on July 18, 1958”
A no-hitter is quite an impressive feat, especially for a Little Leaguer. It was made more impressive by the fact that he struck out eleven batters (out of the eighteen outs in a Little League game), and didn’t allow any of the three batters he walked to advance past first base. A “masterpiece” indeed.
The local paper closed it’s game story by noting that it was my dad’s “third straight defeat of the year without registering a victory as yet.” According to him, it was the last time her ever took the mound.
It’s difficult to imagine the disparity of these pitching performances. The 18-0 final score matches the greatest score differential in a major-league no-hitter. On August 4, 1884, Hall of Famer Pud Galvin of the Buffalo Bisons pitched a no-hitter against the Detroit Wolverines, in a game Buffalo eventually won 18-0.
I decided to try to quantify the difference in performances using the formula for Game Score, with an understanding that as Game Score is traditionally used for nine-inning major-league games, using it for a six-inning Little League game is an imperfect use of the model.
Bulcavage scored an 80, shown below:
I tried to extrapolate his 6-inning stats to a full game, giving him credit for 27 outs, and keeping the same rate for K’s and BB’s. Using this model, he scored a 99. As 100 seems to be the benchmark for a truly great game (105 is the highest recorded score), I don’t think it’s crazy to call this performance a “masterpiece”.
My dad’s score was a bit tougher to discern, as the box score for the game didn’t note how many batters he’d faced, how many walks he’d given up, or the number of unearned vs. earned runs. I decided to just guess, based on the written description of the game. I assume he faced 14 batters (11 runs + the bases loaded?), that he probably gave up hits to 3/4 of them (mention of 10 doubles in the inning), and that 2/3s of the runs allowed were earned (6 errors and a wild pitch). Going off those relatively arbitrary numbers, we get a game score of….
approximately -11.
Not great, however, not the worst ever! On August 16, 1914, George LeClair of the Federal League Pittsburgh Rebels scored a -56 in a 21-6 loss in which he allowed all 21 runs on 24 hits with 8 walks and no strikeouts. It’s not even the worst of the modern era, as Mike Oquist of the Oakland A’s recorded a -21 after allowing 14 runs on 16 hits against the Yankees on August 3, 1998. Justice for my dad!
I would be remiss if I did not also mention my father’s athletic successes, which were also recorded in the pages of the Record-American.
Another favorite story of his was when he won the town foul shot tournament in 1968 (basketball was always his favorite sport anyway). He made 86 out of 100 free throws, nearly set a tournament record, and got his picture in the paper for it!
I love you dad. In my eyes, you’ll always be the greatest athlete who ever lived.