Best way I could think of to get the '63 Catalina some web time.

With Opening Day upon us, I thought I should write something about my favorite sport. When I was 7 years old and starting Little League, I was given a baseball glove autographed by Lew Burdette. That was a great glove; however it was ironic for an avid Yankee fan to sport a Lew Burdette model. Lew shut the Yankees down by pitching complete game victories in games 2, 5 and 7 of the 1957 World Series.

As I was thinking about that glove and remembering some of my discussion with Ron Corwin about baseball the other night, I wondered, "Which individual game from baseball history would I have really liked to have seen?" That's pretty tough for a guy like me who cherishes the history of the game, especially considering all of the great games played over the years. I cheated and whittled it down to 2 games instead of one. There are numerous ballplayers, who I would have loved to have seen play the game (i.e. Wagner, Cobb, Ruth, Gehrig, etc.), but I decided just to choose a game (in my case 2 games) based on the historical significance of the game itself.

The first game I chose included Lew Burdette. It was back in 1959 when one evening in May he faced the Pittsburgh Pirates in Milwaukee County Stadium. Lew fired 13 straight scoreless innings against the Pirates that night, but he went to the bench in the middle of the 13th still tied 0-0. Opposing Lew that night was a crafty left hander by the name of Harvey Haddix. Harvey had pitched 12 innings of perfect baseball when he went back out to the mound in the bottom of the 13th. He had retired 36 straight batters, the longest perfect game ever thrown in baseball history. Unfortunately the game was not over; because of Lew Burdette's tenacity on the mound for the Braves it was still tied. The first batter in the 13th for the Braves, Felix Mantilla, hit a soft grounder to Don Hoak at third. Hoak erred on the throw to first and the Braves had their first base runner of the game. Haddix then walked Hank Aaron intentionally to pitch to Joe Adcock. Adcock homered and Harvey Haddix lost the game.

My other choice was a pitching duel, as well, and also included the Milwaukee Braves. This time the game took place at Candlestick Park in San Francisco in 1963 and the pitchers were both future Hall of Famers. The Giants sent out their young star Juan Marichal and the Braves had the 42 year old Warren Spahn on the hill. The Giants also had three other Hall of Famers in the lineup against Spahn that night, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Orlando Cepeda. The Braves sported two additional Hall of Famers as well against Marichal, Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews, but it wasn't the bats of these great hitters that made the night so memorable, it was the pitchers.

The 42 year old Spahn and Marichal battled to a 0-0 tie when Spahn went back out to the mound for the 16th inning. Both pitchers had thrown over 200 pitches in the game. In the 15th inning, when Giants' Manager Alvin Dark asked Marichal if he wanted to come out of the game, Marichal replied, "I'm not leaving while that old guy is on the mound." It finally ended, shortly after midnight in San Francisco in the bottom of the 16th when Willie Mays homered off of Spahn.

Warren Spahn went on to win 23 games that year, the last of thirteen 20 win seasons for the winningest left-hander in Major League history. Quite an accomplishment for the World War II veteran, who received a Purple Heart and Bronze Star as a combat engineer in the Bulge and at Remagen. Warren Spahn lost 3 prime years of his baseball career to the service of his country and still won 363 games.

So the season begins today (sort of) and I'm ready for your choices of games you would have liked to have seen.