OSUBasketballJunkie
Never Forget 31-0
ABJ
5/15/06
5/15/06
Pinnacle of perfection
On a less-than-perfect night for baseball, Tribe's Barker was flawless
By Sheldon Ocker
Beacon Journal sportswriter
<!-- begin body-content -->These days, Lenny Barker conducts business from behind a desk, like millions of other working stiffs.
But a couple of weeks ago, when the weather broke warm and sunny, he drove to a job site.
``What are you doing out there?'' asked an old acquaintance, who dialed Barker on his cell phone.
``I'm painting a stucco wall at this house,'' Barker said. ``But I wouldn't be doing it, if I wasn't outside.''
To local baseball fans, Barker might seem out of place as a partner in Perfect Pitch Construction, a Chagrin Falls company that specializes in home renovation.
The outdoors is where Barker used to make his living. And a good living it was. Not just the money, either.
On May 15, 1981, Barker pitched a perfect game for the Indians, making history with a 3-0 win over the Toronto Blue Jays at Cleveland Stadium.
Only 15 perfect games -- where no batter reaches first base -- have been thrown in the big leagues.
Barker's achievement was a big deal not only in Northeast Ohio but throughout the country. Everybody wanted to talk to him and that included Bryant Gumbel, who was host of The Today Show on NBC.
The plan was for Barker to drive to Channel 3's studios in downtown Cleveland for the interview. But there was a catch, at least to Barker: He would have to be there at 5 a.m.
``We were going to send a limo for him at 4:30,'' recalled Bob DiBiasio, the Indians' public relations vice president, who at the time was responsible for the daily operations of the PR department.
``Lenny said he didn't want to get up that early. Gumbel couldn't believe it. He's telling me, `What kind of a PR guy are you?' I said, `Lenny's got no interest being in the spotlight.' ''
Barker remembers it the same way.
``I wasn't in it for the publicity, to me it was about baseball,'' he said.
The previous night, it was a Friday, the weather was miserable at the old stadium. At first pitch, the temperature was 49 degrees, and at times a misty rain would muddy up the infield dirt and mound. Scattered around the huge ballpark were 7,290 fans.
It did not seem like a night in which anything historic was about to happen, though Barker, 25, was a highly touted starter with a blazing fastball but erratic control.
He didn't need much help vanquishing the Blue Jays. Second baseman Duane Kuiper made two snappy plays to keep the perfect game going, and third baseman Toby Harrah tumbled into the stands to snag a foul ball.
``Toby made a great catch,'' recalled first baseman Mike Hargrove, currently the manager of the Seattle Mariners. ``He told me the only reason he did it was so the fans wouldn't get the ball. But that's just Toby.''
Awareness that a singular event is happening usually occurs to players at different times during the game.
``I started thinking about it in the seventh,'' said center fielder Rick Manning, one of the Indians' current TV voices. ``A week before, Bert Blyleven had a no-hitter going into the ninth.
``(Manager) Dave Garcia took out Joe Charboneau, and Larry Littleton lost a ball in the lights. Dave was going to do the same thing against Toronto, and Lenny told him, `If you take Joe out, you can take me out, too,' and Dave changed his mind.''
Luckless Larry Littleton had a brief and unsatisfying career with the Tribe. Nine days before Barker's perfect game, Littleton trotted out to left field as a defensive replacement for Charboneau against the same Blue Jays at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto.
Lloyd Moseby hit a drive to left, and Littleton failed to pick up the flight of the ball. By the time he chased it down, Moseby had a double, and Blyleven had lost a no-hitter.
Littleton, now 52, played 45 days for the Indians. He went hitless in 23 at-bats and was eventually traded to the Minnesota Twins. He never was able to build a solid major-league career.
Barker's catcher was Ron Hassey, the only man in history to be behind the plate for two perfect games. He caught Dennis Martinez's perfecto for the Montreal Expos on July 28, 1991, at Dodger Stadium.
``Lenny had an electric breaking ball that night,'' said Hassey, who is the bench coach for the Mariners. ``It had 12-to-6 kind of movement. It would start out as a strike and end up in the dirt.''
Barker used only 103 pitches for the game, 41 fastballs, 60 curveballs and two change-ups.
Hassey definitely was not thinking about a perfect game until the later innings.
``Who in his right mind would think Lenny would pitch nine innings without giving up a walk?'' Hassey said. ``All big guys, guys his size, have a tough time keeping their delivery intact.
``Lenny could have won a lot more games if he had better command of his pitches.''
For the most part, players played it safe and stayed away from Barker when he was in the dugout.
``They didn't help at all, sitting down at the other end of the bench like scared rabbits,'' laughed Barker. ``The only guys who said anything were Manning and Harrah.''
``Lenny was the kind of guy you could talk to,'' Manning said. ``I told him in the ninth, `C'mon, go get 'em. You can do it.' ''
The magnitude of what he was doing finally hit Barker when he walked to the mound in the ninth inning.
``That's the only time I got nervous,'' he said. ``I dropped the ball when I walked out there and almost fell over.''
Cy Buynak, the Tribe equipment manager, had laid down white towels end to end from the dugout all the way up the narrow concrete runway to the locker room. He also had three bottles of champagne on ice at Barker's locker.
``For a no-no (no-hitter), I would have gotten one, but this was a perfect game,'' said Buynak, now in charge of the visitors' clubhouse. ``I waited until the seventh, then thought, `I better get it.' ''
The media got their crack at Barker, but for some reporters it was tough going.
``Allison Gordon covered the Blue Jays for a Toronto paper,'' DiBiasio said. ``At that time, (club president) Gabe Paul didn't want women in the clubhouse. But Allison came up to me and said, `Bobby, you can't keep me out tonight,' so I walked her in.''
The next day, DiBiasio had to deal with Paul.
``I told Gabe it was time to change the policy, and he said, `Every time we pitch a perfect game, a woman can come in the clubhouse.' ''
Some of the players went to Barker's condo after the game for a party.
``I went home, had milk and cookies and went to bed,'' Barker said. ``Not really. We had a little party, but it didn't last that long, because we had a day game coming up.''
After his years in Cleveland, Barker would have surgery on his right elbow to move the ulnar nerve and remove a bone chip.
``My elbow hurt from 1980 on,'' he said. ``I pitched with it. I didn't want to lose my job. And it didn't hurt during games.
``But sometimes the day after I pitched, I couldn't pull the milk carton out of the refrigerator. But usually I would feel normal two or three days after I started.''
After a few days, the perfect game became old news, and it wasn't long before labor strife would cause a 50-game interruption in the season, beginning in June.
``I was having a hell of a year and then came the disruption of the season,'' Barker said. ``After that, I wasn't the same. I wasn't as sharp, and I wasn't as strong.''
And as Hassey said, ``It's not like we were one of the strongest teams in the league. Seems like we were always in a rebuilding year.''
Barker finished the season with an 8-7 record, 3.91 ERA and nine complete games. Six years later, he was out of baseball.
May 15, 1981, was the pinnacle of Barker's career. Never again did he stand atop the baseball world, but his 15 minutes of fame have lasted 25 years.
``Somebody mentions the perfect game almost every day,'' Barker said. ``I think that's pretty neat.''
Barker also appreciates the benefits of painting a stucco wall on a warm and sunny spring day.
<!-- end body-content --><!-- begin body-end -->
Upvote
0
