Skip to footer

13 of the most extraordinary baseball games of all time

Among countless Major League Baseball games played in more than a century – some of consequence but most not – which ones jump off the pages of history? To find out, we dug into the 1,216-page "Baseball Timeline," which gives capsule descriptions of hundreds of games in an incredible chronology published by DK Publishing. While the book has been out since 2001, it's hard to imagine any games being more out of the ordinary in various ways than these.

1. June 23, 1917: Ernie Shore turns in astounding relief-pitching effort

CARLOS OSORIO/AP

  • By Ross Atkin Contributor

The Boston Red Sox defeat the Washington Senators, 4-0.

Babe Ruth was Boston’s starting pitcher but was ejected before recording a single out by umpire Clarence “Brick” Owens for arguing about a leadoff walk on four straight balls. Starting catcher Chester Thomas is also tossed. Ernie Shore, a physically imposing 6 ft. 4 in, 220-lb. hurler, relieves Ruth and before he retires a batter, backup catcher Sam Agnew throws out Ray Morgan as he attempts to steal second base. Shore then proceeds to put down the next 26 Senators, thus recording the first combined no-hitter in major-league history, and nearly a perfect game.  

Additional facts:

- The game took just 1 hour and 40 minutes to play.

- Shore’s pitching record that season was 13-10.

- Although this was considered a “perfect game” at the time, the official definition was later changed, stripping it of its “perfect” status.

1 of 13
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.