Let me also take a moment to wish all the dads out there a Happy Father’s Day. I am doing what I do every Father’s Day, spending it watching baseball and golf with my dad, my hero. Later we’ll go get some pizza and maybe go to a movie I really want to see and he has absolutely no interest in. Father’s Day is a special day for my dad and I, as I never met my grandfather because he died when my dad was 26, over 35 years ago. My dad didn’t get to spend many Father’s Days with his father, so wen try to make the most of each one we have together, because you just never know how many you have left. My dad has always been my hero, and my best friend, and its a day I get to spend with him and try to let him know just how special he really is.

Father’s Day is also a special day for the Phillies, as 34 years ago today Jim Bunning threw the Phillies’ only Perfect Game. To make the game even more special, it was against the New York Mets. Bunning became the only player (at the time) to ever throw a no-hitter in both leagues, and the first pitcher to throw a perfect game in the National League in 84 years.

Bunning was pitching in his first season with the Phillies after being traded during the off season from the Detroit Tigers. The previous year Bunning went a disappointing 12-13 after several very successful years, including 20 wins in 1957. The following year Bunning threw his first no-hitter, this one against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. In 1958 and 1959 he led the American League with 201 strikeouts each year. (Kind of like Adam Dunn hitting exactly 40 home runs in the last three consecutive seasons.)

Behind the hard hitting bats of Dick Allen and Johnny Callison, some solid defense that the current Phils could take a page from, and a 6-2 record by Bunning, the Phillies found themselves in first place by June 20th. Despite the dark ending that would eventually befall the Phillies (who would only be relieved of the terrible burden of the greatest collapse in baseball history last year by those same Mets), the Phillies were hot coming into a beautiful, sunny Sunday afternoon.

Bunning came into the game in the bottom of the first already with a 1-0 lead, and never to look back. Leadoff man Johnny Briggs started the game off with a walk, went to second on a sac bunt by John Herrnstein, and scored on a single by, who else, Dick Allen.

As is needed for any no-hitter or perfect game, Bunning was the recipient of some good breaks that day. Some of those breaks came early on, as he described to author James Buckley Jr. for his book entitled Perfect: The Inside Story of Baseball’s Sixteen Perfect Games.

It was one of those wonderful starts to a game. I got away with some pitches early. Against Jim Hickman leading off the game for the Mets, I got away with some pitches that should have been hit. But he fouled them back.

The hard-throwing, 6′3″ Bunning was also very intimidating. According to Hickman,

He threw me too good pitches in the first, good pitches to hit and I fouled them off. Then he stood out there on the mound and laughed at me! After that, I didn’t see a good pitch to hit all day.

Bunning had all his pitches working that day, his slider, his curve, and most importantly, his fast ball. This had the Mets flailing around after pitches early, and often. The Mets didn’t get good wood on the ball until the fifth inning. Bunning tried to slip one right by Mets’ catcher Jesse Gonder with the only change up he would throw all game, which Gonder got around on and drove hard between first and second. Phillies’ second baseman Tony Taylor dove to his left and managed to knock the grounder down with his glove. However, the ball bounced away several feet. Taylor jumped up, grabbed the ball, and threw a bullet to first to just barely get Gonder.

‘Taylor made an unbelievable play,’ Bunning remembers. ‘If it weren’t Jesse Gonder running, he wouldn’t have thrown him out. When he did that, I thought I might have something special going. But looking back, man, that was the play.’

Buckley makes a great point in his book about how the little things end up making all the difference in a game like this.

As happened in several perfect games, a play in the early or middle innings that would have barely been noticed in a 6-3 game suddenly loomed large in the postgame discussion…So many things had to go just right on that play, any one of which would have changed the outcome, ended the perfect game, and sent the play and the game into baseball obscurity.

After that play, Bunning realized that he was flirting with baseball history, and started moving his infielders around. Then in the sixth inning, Bunning helped his own cause with a two run double to left-center. According to Buckley, the cat was out of the bag and Bunning went against every baseball superstition in the book and began chatting openly with his teammates about what was going on.

‘I really didn’t care about the superstitions,’ he says. ‘I had been through one where I almost had total collapse [the Boston no-hitter]. So it was important to me to relax. Having gone through that game in Fenway really helped me in the perfect game. No one said anything then, and when it was over with, it was total bedlam. I didn’t want that to happen again, so I tried to talk about it during the game in Shea.’

He was jabbering at his teammates after each half inning, counting down the outs. “Nine more, six more…” Despite tempting fate, Bunning shut down the Mets in perfect fashion, striking out six of the final nine hitters.

As happens during most such games, the Mets faithful switched sides that day and began rooting for Bunning to pull it out.

It was unusual to have everyone there rooting for me. It was kind of strange. everyone stood up. You don’t expect the whole crowd to stand up during a game. But they all stood up.

The only thing left for Bunning to do was close it out. Charlie Smith led off the bottom of ninth with a weak pop up to Rojas in foul territory. Next up was pinch hitter George Altman. Altman fouled off the first two pitches and then Bunning threw him a slow, outside pitch that Altman swung on and missed.

With one out to go, Bunning needed a little pick me up to calm his nerves. Pausing behind the mound to wipe off his sweat drenched face as he prepared to face pinch hitter John Stephenson, Bunning motioned for Gus Triandos to come out. Triandos had been traded with Bunning from Detroit to Philadelphia that past off-season.

‘He wanted me to tell him a joke,’ Triandos said. ‘But I couldn’t think of anything! I just told him to go get this guy, and that was it.’

Not exactly a Vince Lombardi speech, but it did the trick. “‘I just wanted to relax a bit,’ Bunning remembers.” Stephenson was batting a paltry .074 on the season and Bunning knew if he threw three curveballs over the plate he would get him. It was just a matter of hitting the spots.

Bunning started him out with two quick strikes, but then followed that up with two pitches out of the strike zone.

Then came curveball-to-a-spot number three. It broke like a jet fighter going into a dive, and Stephenson swung over the top.

The crowd at Shea Stadium erupted, understanding that even though their Mets just got shut down in a way only 16 other teams in history would go down, they were seeing a rare piece of history. Even though four other players would go on to do it, Bunning was then the first player to ever throw a no-hitter in both leagues. Due to the rule changes over the years, it can be said that Bunning was the first pitcher to throw a perfect game in the NL.

The Phillies ran onto the field and surrounded Bunning, thr proud father who had just given birth to a perfect, two-hour, 19-minute, 90-pitch baby.

Bunning was, to be sure, overwhelmed by all the media attention he received as a result of the perfect game.

‘It was obviously the best game as far as results that I’ve ever pitched. I’ve had better stuff, though, just not as good control. I mean, to pitch a no-hitter against the Red Sox, with the hitter they had, was a tougher feat, I think, than the Mets. I’m not knocking the Mets, but the Red Sox had Ted Williams and Jackie Jensen and Pete Runnels and a lot of other good hitters.’

Bunning would go on to win 19 games that year for the Phillies, despite always having mixed feelings about 1964. He would continue to pitch well for Philadelphia, with two more 19-win seasons followed by a 17-win season in 1967.

Jim Bunning retired in 1971 with 224 career wins, and at the time was third all time in strikeouts. He would be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996.

Bunning, now a father of nine, honored the love and hard work and dedication of fathers everywhere, particularly fathers who are long suffering Phillies fans like my dad, by making history on Dad’s Day.

As Bunning says in the Foreword of Perfect,

After the game was over and the initial thrill had worn off a bit, I realized that the best part about a perfect game is that your teammates are perfect with you…That made it a little more special because on that one summer day in 1964, our team was flawless - in pitching, fielding, and communicating on the field - and the thrill that comes with working so closely, so perfectly, with your teammates is beyond words for me.

I think that is very fitting for Father’s Day, as no one can go through life and be successful without the help of those around him (or her), and that often starts with our parents. As far as baseball goes, there is no greater honor or tribute to be had on that late Sunday in June. Here’s to you Dad(s).