Unremarkable Moments in History

Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Never too cold for hot-stove history

Morsch went to some kind of signing event featuring - guess who! - Phillies players.

There’s nothing that takes away the sting of cold weather more than witnessing a little bit of baseball history in January.

On a day full of football in which it was decided that the Green Bay Packers would meet the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV, the only two men in the history of baseball to have thrown no-hitters in the postseason met face-to-face — possibly for the first time — Sunday at a Valley Forge hotel in front of a handful of fans lucky enough to realize what they were witnessing.

I can see that two such men meeting each other is a unique event, but is it really any more significant because the NFL conference championship games were played on the same day? How about: "On a day full of hockey in which the Flyers beat the same team who defeated them to win the Stanley Cup, etc"?

Phillies ace Roy Halladay and Yankees legend Don Larsen were part of an autograph-signing show that also included Phils’ skipper Charlie Manuel, players Cliff Lee, Placido Polanco and Domonic Brown, as well as Phillies Hall-of-Fame pitcher Jim Bunning.

Uh-oh, Bunning is a Republican! Watch out, Morsch! Was he as gracious as the other players undoubtedly were?

For once, I was in the right place at the right time.

Well, you'd think that would be a reporter's job... but okay.

Larsen had finished his signing session and was exiting the room full of fans just as Halladay was coming in for his session. The two pitchers greeted each other, then posed for pictures for alert fans who recognized the significance of the encounter.

Luckily, I had my video camera at the ready.

This ranks right up there with the Zapruder film.

You can hear the reaction of those standing near me on what they just witnessed.

"You can hear the reaction... on what they just witnessed"? That is one miserable sentence. In the video, by the way, the "reaction" you hear is:

ONE GUY: That is - keep goin' Linds (?). Keep goin'. That is sweet there. That's sweet. All right!

It sounds like a porno movie is playing behind him or something. Most of the video features sloooooow pans across rows of Phils merchandise.

The buzz in the room was that it was the first time the two had ever met face-to-face. In my brief time with Halladay at the autograph table, I asked if that was the case.

“Had you ever met Mr. Larsen?” I said.

“I’ve spoken to him,” said Halladay.

That's kind of a non-answer, isn't it?

There wasn’t time for elaboration as the next autograph seeker was up and I was headed out of the line. I took Halladay to mean that he and Larsen had spoken on the phone, most likely after Halladay had tossed his gem in the 2010 playoffs.

The intrepid reporter leaves no stone unturned, eh Mr. Morsch? Way to assume your way right to the bottom of this mystery.

Larsen’s no hitter — in Game 5 of the World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers on Oct. 8, 1956 — was a perfect game (he faced the minimum of 27 batters and recorded every out), the only time that’s ever been done in baseball history.

There needs to be a hyphen in "no hitter." The way it's written, it makes it sound like Larsen can't hit very well.

Halladay’s no-hitter was in Game 1of

He got it right this time, but missed a space between "1" and "of."

the National League Division Series against the Cincinnati Reds on Oct. 6, 2010. That one wasn’t a perfect game, but as all Phillies fans know, Halladay had pitched a perfect game against the Florida Marlins earlier in the 2010 season.

Check out the video that accompanies this item. It’s a nice little piece of baseball history that happened right here in our own back yard.

See, Morsch can worm his way into interviews with out-of-work country stars and washed-up old-time rockers, but give him a real celebrity and he has time for one question and half an answer. I hope that, somehow, he realizes that.

Labels: Mike Morsch, Montgomery Newspapers, Outta Leftfield, Phillies