John Lee Richmond
Perfect Game
Saturday, June 12, 1880
Richmond threw the first perfect game in ML history for the Worcester Brown Stockings.
Charlie Bennett caught the game for the Brown Stockings.
Reportedly RF Lon Knight saved the no-hitter by throwing out a batter at first base.
Jim McCormick pitched for Cleveland and allowed only 3 hits.
The only run scored when Blues' second baseman Fred "Sure Shot" Dunlap
juggled a double-play throw from the pitcher and then threw over the catcher's head, as Irwin crossed the plate.
The time of game was 1 hour, 26 minutes.
The Worcester Evening Gazette called it "the best game on record."
Five days later, Monte Ward would pitch the second perfect game in history.
John Lee Richmond was a lefthanded curve ball artist who stood 5'10" and weighed 142 lbs. He first won fame in 1879, pitching for both Brown University in Providence and Worcester's minor league team. In a rain-shortened, seven-inning exhibition game, Richmond pitched a no-hitter against Cap Anson's Chicago White Stockings, who were leading the National League at the time. A week later, he defeated Yale to give Brown the College Championship.
In 1880, his senior year in college, Richmond worked 74 of Worcester's 83 games -- an astonishing total of 590.2 innings -- winning 32 and losing 32. Lee was no slacker. When he wasn't on the mound, he earned his pay by playing the outfield. He continued this kind of yeoman work until 1882 when he began suffering from a chronic sore arm. But Richmond had another career in mind anyway -- he was using baseball to finance his medical education. He pitched briefly for Providence in '83 and then retired from baseball at age 26 to become a doctor. J. Lee Richmond returned to his home state of Ohio, picking up the baseball just one more time, to play a few games for Cincinnati in 1886. The good doctor lived until 1929.
Marker at the site of professional baseball's first perfect game
ON JUNE 12, 1880, THE
FIRST PERFECT GAME IN
PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL
HISTORY WAS PITCHED ON
THIS SITE (THE FORMER
WORCESTER AGRICULTURAL
FAIRGROUNDS) BY J. LEE
RICHMOND OF WORCESTER
AGAINST CLEVELAND IN A
NATIONAL LEAGUE GAME.
INDEX
