Such a long time ago

July 18, 2024

Tonight I ordered a pizza from a place that’s been in business since 1965. When you sell pizzas in a place like Chicago, there’s a large market because so many people live here. And, truth be told, Chicagoans love pizza like nobody else does. So to stay in business for that long is something to be very proud of, as they justifiably are.

Something else happened in 1965, either a few days or weeks before or after my pizza shop opened their doors for the first time. A young kid named Rudy May took to the mound in Los Angeles, for his first major league start against the Detroit Tigers on April 18.

May was all of 20 years old, and had just endured a rough off-season where he had been traded from the Chicago White Sox to the Philladelphia Phillies in October of 1964, and then traded again from the Phillies to the Los Angeles Angels six weeks later. Being traded by a team you never suited up for seems strange to me, but baseball is nothing if not strange sometimes.

Rudy May walked two batters in the first inning, and another two in the third. Jitters from a rookie pitcher are completely understandable. But he escaped these two situations without being scored upon, and before anyone knew it this rookie pitcher—making his first big league start!—took the mound in the eighth inning, just six outs away from pitching a no-hitter.

After retiring the first batter in the eighth inning, May surrendered a double to a pinch-hitter named Jake Wood. In the modern version of baseball, the manager would have immediately removed May from the game, and allowed the bullpen to perserve what was a one-run Angels lead. There must have been some applause from the fans in attendance, in appreciation of his efforts that day. But in 1964, a complete game was still the expected outcome from a starting pitcher, rookie or no rookie. So May continued on in his quest to secure a victory for his team.

The next batter up for the Tigers, George Thomas, was also a pinch-hitter. He hit the ball toward a normally reliable second baseman named Bobby Knoop, who would win three golden gloves over the course of his playing career. But for whatever reason Knoop couldn’t make the play, and Wood came around from second to tie the game. It was an unearned run charged to May, and it cost him the chance to win the game, as the Angels failed to score in either the 8th or 9th innings and lost the game in 13 innings.

Rudy May’s stat line couldn’t have been much better than it was that day, considering that he also recorded ten strikeouts. He missed out on a win, but also proved that he could pitch well at the major league level. He went on to pitch in the majors until 1983, when he retired with 152 wins to his credit, and an impressive 87 complete games.

Jake Wood, who broke up May’s early bid for a no-hitter, was out of the major leagues by the time this 1972 card appeared, and George Thomas was awaiting a return call to the majors which unfortunately never came. And Bobby Knoop, who may have been able to preserve a victory for May with a clean play at second base that day, was in a reserve role for his final season in the majors. But Rudy May still had a long big-league career ahead of him, as the smile on his face might suggest.

For his 80th birthday today, I wanted to relive a great debut game that I never got to witness, but can still appreciate all the same.

Until next time…..