Almost Perfect

December 19, 2016
In a meticulously researched 16 chapters, Cox (Fightin’ Words) honors a select and largely overlooked club of 16 major-league pitchers bound by the label that serves as the book’s title. Each of these men came within a whisker of a perfect game only to fall short, sometimes under extraordinary circumstances. Cox holds up their brush with perfection as a mirror for the fallible human condition. The eclectic collection of stories validates the hyperbole as he largely avoids baseball authors’ treacly penchant for romanticizing their sport. The Harvey Haddix, Babe Ruth, and Armando Galarraga games will be known by many; only serious fans will likely remember most of the other 13. Cox adds considerable pre- and postgame context to these almost-perfectos to give his subjects and the national pastime depth. This is most satisfying in his personal interview with Milt Pappas. However, chapters can slow to a crawl with detailed play-by-play accounts, and the self-contained chapters limit Cox’s ability to offer much in the way of a unifying theme beyond the heartbreak of falling short so close to one’s goal. The ambitious effort will appeal to hard-ore fans but not engage new ones.

February 1, 2017
When a pitcher retires all 27 batters in a game and records the win, it's known as a perfect game. There have been only 23 perfect games in the Major Leagues since 1900. Veteran sports author Cox focuses not on those 23 gems but on 13 almost perfect games in which pitchers retired the first 26 batters and on the 3 games in which pitchers retired the first 27 but did not get the win because their teams didn't score. The first of the 16 chapters takes readers back to 1908 when George Hooks Wiltse, with two outs in the ninth, hit a lifetime .117 hitter with a pitch. The previous pitch, by all accounts, should have been the game-ending third strike, but the ump missed the call. Flash forward 60-plus years to Wrigley Field in Chicago, where Cub pitcher Milt Pappas walked the twenty-seventh batter on a disputed ball four. Pappas never missed an opportunity to complain about that call until his death in 2016. Cox details each of the other 14 near misses with equal verve. This is very well researched baseball fun.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)