El Presidente – El Perfecto

Just before the new year I was able to watch a great thing, Dennis Martinez’s perfect game at Chavez Ravine in 1991.  If I’m fortunate, I may be able to watch it again, but we’ll see.

Now, now, I know that the internet has provided us all with endless opportunities to study such things as those that I am about to relate.  But trust me, trust me, my friends, you can search and search after 50 years, and you will never find people who really do remember it or who saw it.  I know.  From falling hands.

What a hot day it was, nothing for Dennis.  The ‘spos had been shut down lately—Mark Gardner almost throwing a no-hitter on his own—clearly, the ‘spos were beginning to round into the form that made them World Champions in 1994.  Dodgers were  hot—league leaders, huge team average.

The ‘spos had that idiot coach, Tom Runnells, who initiated spring training with a foghorn and in fatigues, previewing the Jays’ Tim Johnson, who said he was in ‘nam when he wasn’t.  Baseball brings out the worst of Americans. . . .   Having gone through Earl Weaver, Dennis, Nicaraguan, would have regarded such things if not with irony, then with experience and determination, one of less than 10 to win 100 in both leagues.

I think, if I remember it right, Andres Galarraga was either in the doghouse or on the d/l, and a youngish Larry Walker came in to play 1^st base.  He proved to be pivotal.  Alongside Delino DeShields, who took most of the chances, it was Walker, above all, who just had the feel and the grit and know-how for the game that got Dennis through the perfect game—and Walker was clearly not at his accustomed position, or anything like it—he was just one hell of a ballplayer.  One hell of a ballplayer—five tools and smart—Larry Walker was six tools.

Dennis was pushed by Mike Morgan, the tired Dodgers’ starter—in fact, it was more or less a perfect game for both through about 4.  Morgan was a top starter, and the Dodgers had an astonishingly good hitting team, very American league, with Kal Daniels and Eddie Murray as relatively easy at-bats. The Expos knew they were good, but they had an idiot manager.  Dennis, I think, was challenged a bit by Morgan, not so much by his own team or his manager.  On the other hand, Gardner had gone out there and shown he could shut down a team completely—Dennis had to show he could still do that. Morgan pitched very well, but Dennis found another gear through the middle innings that truly asserted his presence; he would not be schooled by a boy.

In those days, they didn’t have all the newfangled devices we do now.  If Dennis threw about 110-112 pitches, I bet at least 95 were curves.  He had that tight curve working, and the Dodgers had a left-handed lineup, and as expert analyst and perennial .300 hitter Ken Singleton said, “you’d need a pitching wedge to get that one.”  Delino DeShields, at 2^nd base, must have had 12 chances, easy (remember, Walker).  The outfield probably only got about 3 chances all afternoon.

In and  out.  The Dodgers’ lefties would top ball after ball to DeShields at 2^nd.  Looking back, you would say, how could they do it?  But that was just how tight Dennis’s spin was.

Umpiring—let’s talk about umpiring, for that always must feature, just as refereeing does in hockey.  Well, I think Dennis got more calls than Morgan did, but only about 2-1, in terms of obvious calls that should have been gotten.  There were only a couple of calls that either pitcher should have gotten, and if you watch the game, well, Dennis maybe got at most 2 that Morgan didn’t get.  It was pretty even up, I think even Morgan would say.  Dennis also didn’t get a couple, but on the whole I would say Morgan was -1 or -2.  I’ll have to go to the tape.

Morgan tired, and Dennis knew he had his stuff.  He shook it out in his kinky way and then twisted into that trademark delivery.

Dennis threw at most 3-5 fastballs the whole afternoon, up and in, smokin’ 90, if that can be called smokin,’ at the Dodgers’ lefties. . . .  Dennis threw maybe 5-6 changes the whole afternoon, but when he did, they were devastating.  The Dodgers were looking curve so much that they might get fastball and then they get. . . change.  I really think Dennis should have thrown the change more that day, at Chavez Ravine, when he threw a perfect game.

In the final at bat, the Dodgers pinch hitter got just a little bit out in front of it, and it was just a bit in on his hands.  It was a good piece of hitting, because he had been studying up.  I actually think Dennis was a bit lucky.   Dennis felt that way, too.  We’ll never know, but it would have taken a good 20 ft more to get it out of the park—that was no warning-track shot; that one was caught on the wide green field of dreams.

The Chavez Ravine fans, they were classy.  They knew they’d seen a fine duel between Morgan and Martinez.  They clapped when Martinez came on for the ninth, and even stood while Dennis completed his perfect game—very, very classy fans in the true Vin Scully mode.  In Canada, you know when people know hockey, and they applaud it; I’m no Dodgers fan, but the Dodgers fans did show they liked baseball.

And then.

So what.  El Presidente, El Perfecto.  Dave Van Horne gets a new piece of turf, and Dennis is only one of the less than 10, joining Fergie Jenkins, who did it in both leagues.  What an achievement.

The ‘spos move on.  On to be the best team in baseball in ’94, so far out in front they  played with water pistols in Georgia before the Strike.

Best team ever.

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