RIP Lew Burdette

Oh man, that hurts.

Turn out the lights …

 

And somewhere, George Frazier once again shudders in anticipation of the first line of his obituary.

 

One of only two pitchers to lose 3 games in a World SDeries...the only one to do it when he was trying to win.

 

He was the winning pitcher in Harvey Haddix's 12 perfect innings game. He once said the Braves were making outs so fast he didn't have a chance to smoke a cigarette in the dugout between innings.

 

The pride of Nitro, W.Va.

 

Wow...Frankie Laine and now Lew Burdette....

Who's got next?

 

J.R. House would disagree.

Then Lew Burdette would knock him on his ass.

 

What's more remarkable -- that Haddix was perfect for 12 innings, or that both he and Burdette pitched complete games that night?

You're right, but apparently he may not have even been the second-toughest pitcher on the Braves staff.

Bob Buhl would have been the toughest, hands down, and Gene Conley would have had a valid claim for the No. 2 spot. According to Hank Aaron's book, some of the Braves were at a party that got out of hand and the owner of the house sicced his Doberman on the players. When it jumped up at Conley, who was 6-8 and also won three NBA titles with the Boston Celtics, he KO'd it with one punch. Mongo had nothing on Conley.

Between Buhl, Conley, Burdette, Aaron (who once went after teammate Rico Carty on a flight) and Eddie Matthews (who beat the shit out of Frank Robinson on the field one day), I don't think I'd have wanted to mess with the Braves.

 

If I could be at one game in history, it might be that one.

That one's even more amazing than the night that Luis Tiant went 14.1 innings and Nolan Ryan went 13 in 1974. Ryan threw exactly 235 pitches -- not approximately, exactly -- and struck out 19 batters.

 

Marichal and Spahn had a legendary one as well, I believe, somethin glike 15 innings and it ended 1-0 on a homer by Mays, I think. Too lazy and too late to google.

 

Check Marichal's game logs on Retrosheet for 1958-62. Can't imagine he had too many 1-0 games against the Braves where he went 15. Shouldn't be hard to find.

 

One of the great modern spitball artists.

RIP