Perfect Game - History

History

The first known use in print of the term perfect game occurred in 1908. I. E. Sanborn's report for the Chicago Tribune about Joss's performance against the White Sox calls it, "an absolutely perfect game, without run, without hit, and without letting an opponent reach first base by hook or crook, on hit, walk, or error, in nine innings." Several sources have claimed (erroneously) that the first recorded usage of the term "perfect game" was by Ernest J. Lanigan in his Baseball Cyclopedia, made in reference to Robertson's 1922 game. The Chicago Tribune came close to the term in describing Richmond's game in 1880: "Richmond was most effectively supported, every position on the home nine being played to perfection." Similarly, in writing up Ward's perfect game, the New York Clipper described the "perfect play" of Providence's defense.

The current official Major League Baseball definition of a perfect game is largely a side effect of the decision made by the major leagues' Committee for Statistical Accuracy on September 4, 1991, to redefine a no-hitter as a game in which the pitcher or pitchers on one team throw a complete game of nine innings or more without surrendering a hit. That decision removed a number of games that had long appeared in the record books: those lasting fewer than nine innings, and those in which a team went hitless in regulation but then got a hit in extra innings. The definition of perfect game was made to parallel this new definition of the no-hitter, in effect substituting "baserunner" for "hit". As a result of the 1991 redefinition, for instance, Harvey Haddix receives credit for neither a perfect game nor a no-hitter for the game described below in which he threw 12 perfect innings before allowing a baserunner in the 13th.