Hall of Fame Pitcher Gaylord Perry VS. The Moon Landing?

Gaylord Perry is a Hall of Fame pitcher with 314 wins in his career. A 2x Cy Young award winner and 5x All-Star that spent 22 years in the Bigs and kept runners at bay with a 3.11 ERA over that span. A master of doctoring baseballs on the mound (legally at first until rules made it illegal, but that didn’t seem to stop him), helped Perry strikeout 3,534 batters! Good enough for 8th on the all-time strikeouts list.

So after a quick rundown on the dominant pitcher that spent more than two decades throwing filth from the rubber, let’s talk about his batting. Particularly one at bat on July 20th, 1969. That date sure seems familiar right?

First, a bit of backstory for you. There was no DH before 1973 so anytime, anywhere throughout the league the pitcher was up to bat every ninth batter. No big deal. They’re all athletes that can adapt to batting at least .200….right?

Not Perry. The man had to be a Hall of Fame pitcher if he was going to bat as bad as he did. A .131 average isn’t worth keeping around unless the opposing teams are tossing zeros on the scoreboard non-stop. During batting practice with the Giants in 1964, San Francisco’s manager Alvin Dark was discussing an upcoming series while Gaylord Perry knocked a few balls out of the park. The reporter, Harry Jupiter, mentioned to the skipper that Perry looked good in the batter’s box and could hit a home run one of these days.

Alvin disagreed with a statement that would last the test of baseball time. “Mark my words, a man will land on the moon before Gaylord Perry hits a home run.”

Fast forward to July 20th, 1969. Early that afternoon Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first two human beings to step on the moon for a historic moment for all mankind. And you’ll never guess what happened next…

Gaylord Perry got the start that day against the Dodgers. Giving up 3 runs in the first inning. Stepping into the batter’s box, about 30 minutes after news spread over the loudspeaker about the moon landing, Gaylord was facing Claude Osteen with nobody on and 2 outs. Gaylord was such a terrible batter he usually just looked for fastballs to hit and Osteen mistakenly left one over the plate just enough for Perry to send it over the fence and fair! His first career home run!

Former Giants manager for Perry, but now with the Indians, Alvin Dark was quoted after the game saying, “Hey, technically speaking, we did put a man on the moon before you hit a home run.”

If Hollywood had written this story, no one would have filmed it because it would be deemed to unrealistic. Instead, baseball fans around the world get to tell the tale of Gaylord Perry’s race against astronauts...