I’m already sorta drunk, on a Saturday night in early May, 2025.
Wife wants to be alone upstairs, I want to be alone downstairs. A long-married couple has nights like that. We’ve been watching “All Creatures Great and Small” together, for comfort. But we want to watch our own things, tonight. Also, for comfort.
I know how to find mine: indulging the ole inner child by watching sports moments from before he was “inner.” I’ve seen most of the ones I saw when I was a kid, and even most of the ones I didn’t see.
This one, from 49 years ago, is one of the latter:
On May 15, 1981, one of the least auspicious baseball games ever played turned into one of the most, when a Cleveland Indians pitcher named Len Barker threw a—well, I don’t want to say it, cuz I don’t want to jinx it—against the cellar-dwelling Toronto Blue Jays.
Indians announcer Joe Tait opens with forced cheer: “Well, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing tonight, we hope you enjoy this broadcast and stick with us as the Tribe goes on the warpath against Toronto.” Ah, the old Indians metaphors. But like it or not, the Blue Jays are about to get scalped.
A steady light rain is falling. “So what else is new?” asks Tait, rhetorically, even his voice sounding dank. “The rain has been with us for about the last four weeks … Large Lenny rocks into that big windup, and the one-one pitch to [Alfredo] Griffin, there’s a tapper past the mound, [Tom] Verizon charges at short, gloves the ball, the throw to first, they just get him by a half a step!”
I don’t remember exactly why I missed this one. It took place on a Friday night—probably past my seventh-grade bedtime—and aired on WUAB Channel 43, the UHF channel in Cleveland. Lotta rabbit ears involved in bringing Channel 43 in. (Kids, if you don’t know what “UHF” means, please read no further; this isn’t for you.) But boy did I hear about it over the next couple of days. About the same frenzy as when they picked a pope from Chicago.
“And now the rain is coming down harder here at the stadium,” Tait says, observing that the club had already had five postponements in the season. “The Indians in first place in the American League East with a 15-8 record and a game ahead of Baltimore and New York … Indians starters have been absolutely sensational this year to say the least.”
This was a pretty promising moment in the history of a long-beleaguered team. Still, there are only 7,290 fans at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium, which held 78,000. In the background, you can almost pick up individual conversations.
Indians’ first baseman Mike Hargrove is up with centerfielder Rick Manning on first, and one out. “The Human Rain Delay,” Hargrove was called, because he took at least 30 seconds between pitches to cycle through a series of finicky adjustments that would have been called OCD if that had been a term back in those days. “Grover” singles to right and Manning goes to third. Manning scores on a sacrifice fly and the Indians are up 1-0 in the bottom of the first.
Now some groundskeepers come out with a wheelbarrow and pour a “drying agent” that looks like chalk onto the rain-drenched, “sticky and gummy” pitcher’s mound.
All of Cleveland needed that treatment that time of year.
Indians get another run and after one inning, they’re up 2-0.
Centerfielder Manning makes two good catches in the second and still, Toronto has still not put anyone on base.
Bottom of second, Joe Charboneau leads off. “Super Joe Charboneau,” rookie of the year in 1980, the first year I followed baseball. Charboneau, who was known for popping off bottle caps with the top of his eye-socket and drinking beer through his nose, strikes out. He had a short career.
Rick Manning makes the final putout in the top of the third, and still, Barker hasn’t had to deal with a single baserunner.
Barker ends the fourth with a strikeout. That curveball is breaking.
In the fifth, Indians’ third baseman Toby Harrah extends the you-know-what by jumping over a railing and making a diving catch of a foul ball in the stands. The murmuring little crowd is starting to get loud.
Indians aren’t doing much on offense, but still lead 2-0.
“Barker has retired all 15 men in order that he’s faced,” Tait says as we open the sixth—still studiously avoiding discussing the potential implications. (Barker has 12 more men to retire for a p****** game.)
Dwayne Kuiper makes a great play at second and throws to first for the first out of the inning. The difference between a perfect game and a no-hitter so often relies on the defense not making errors—and making great plays to prevent hits. Between Manning, Harrah and Kuiper, I’ve counted at last three in this game already.
“Barker’s curveball and slider have been explosive. And his fastball the last two innings have been overpowering,” Tait says, adding, “These fans are excited here tonight at Municipal Stadium and rightfully so.”
Color man Herb Score adds, “Fans are really riding on every pitch now.”
Tait: “These fans are fully aware of what’s going on at Municipal Stadium tonight. Not one Blue Jay has reached first base in any way, shape or form.”
And Barker strikes out the last batter in the sixth.
“I run into people almost every day who want to talk about it,” Barker would say in 2006. “Everyone says, ‘You’re probably tired of talking about it.’ I say, ‘No, it’s something to be proud of.’ It’s a special thing.”
Surely the most special thing in a journeyman career whose prime was with the Indians, who in a strike-interrupted 1981 season wound up in sixth place in the American League East with a 52-51 record.
From the increasingly loud but still sparse crowd, you can actually hear the shouts of individuals. After a questionable ball-and-strike call, a guy shouts at the umpire, “Get your head on!”
Now in the top of the seventh, Dwayne Kuiper tracks down a ground ball far to his left and makes a putout throw that would have made the SportsCenter Top 10, if the SportsCenter Top 10 had been invented yet. (Kids, are you still reading this?) I probably read about this game in the sports section of the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Saturday—yes, seventh-graders read the newspaper back then for the sports and the funnies, at least—but likely didn’t see these highlights until the next night, on the sports portion of the six-o’clock local news.
Barker strikes out the last two in the seventh. The perfect game is still on, and Lenny is looking ever stronger. Fans are screaming now, somehow sounding like a sellout crowd. And Barker strikes out the side to get out of the eighth.
Indians’ outfielder Jorge Orta hits a home run in the bottom of the eighth to give the Indians a 3-0 lead.
Top of the ninth.
Herb Score: “The story has been Len Barker—eight perfect innings!”
Pop-up to third, one out.
Blue Jays pinch hit for light-hitting rookie third baseman Danny Ainge.
Tait points out that the last perfect game in Major League Baseball was 13 years ago, by Catfish Hunter.
“He struck him out, strike three!”
Two outs now for pinch-hitter Ernie Whitt, who could ruin everything, with one swing of the bat—or even a timely walk. But for once in the modern history of Cleveland, defeat doesn’t seem possible tonight.
Strike one.
Ball one.
Strike two.
Herb Score: “Two strikes, one ball, ninth inning. Len Barker on the verge of really, one of the great games in baseball history.”
Joe Tait: “This place is bedlam, Herb. It’s absolutely pandemonium at the stadium.”
I think I actually remember Score’s call on the last out.
“Fly ball, centerfield. Manning coming on. He’s there. He gets it!”
Did I get it about right?
Well, in any case, I passed an old man’s Saturday night, in comfort.
