In 1964, my wife, then of three months went to a Mets vs. Phillies game at Shea Stadium, the first year of the Mets occupancy, and saw a perfect game. Today my wife of 45 years went to a Mets vs. Phillies game in the first year of the Mets occupancy of Citi Field (also known as Bailout Bowl) and the game ended on this: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090823&content_id=6585864&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
Amazing! We also saw the first inside-the-park home run in Citi Field when a ball that should have been a double or maybe triple lodged under a billboard and the Phillies center fielder decided to play umpire and rule it a ground-rule double. Unfortunately for him, the real umpire disagreed.
Years back I took my then girlfriend to a ballgame, Rangers vs Blue Jays, something I usually did with the guys. When Nolan had gone 4 innings w/o a hit the buzz started in the park. After 7 they announced TV stations were starting to link in. When he secured the final out in the 9th, still hitless, people went effin’ berserk. I’ll never forget said girlfriend looking at me and saying “So… I take it this is rare?” Hari, what compelling event do you have planned for her next game?
It’s amazing how you can go to a baseball game and almost always see some relatively rare occurrence.
The first Phillies game I ever saw in person featured an inside-the-park home run (by Juan Samuel), a home run by a pitcher (by Kevin Gross–first home run of his career, according to Baseball Reference), and a batter being carried off the field after being hit in the back by a pitch.
In fact the same game started with an inside-the-park home run - the first one at the Mets’ new park - that came about because Victorino (I think) tried to get clever and bluff the umpires into calling the hit a ground rule double. The ball had rolled beneath the padding of the outfield wall, but it wasn’t stuck there and was exposed and easily playable. It might’ve worked if Ibanez hadn’t come running in from left field, picked up the ball and thrown it in.
Just for record, neither game was for an anniversary, although the 1964 game was on our originally chosen marriage date. We were actually married three months earlier. We pushed it up for reasons that would be incomprehensible today.
Another interesting occurrence was that the umpires overturned a decision of the 2nd base ump that a ball had been trapped, not caught.
Incdientally, my son was with us and it was the second time he had seen a game end on a triple play. The first one was in early September 1991, six days before we put him on a plane to go away to college. It was a ground ball 5-4-3 triple play and that could conceivably be even rarer than an unassisted TP. In a close game, the 3rd baseman was guarding the line and a hard fielded a hard hit ground ball while touching 3rd base and from that point it was just like a 5-4-3 DP.
And I second the guy who says that any time you go to a ball game, you might see something really rare. Once I was in Seattle at the Safe (so not too many years ago). Seattle beat Baltimore 8-0. As I was looking over my scorecard the next day, I realized an astonishing fact. Seattle had scored in four different innings. But in all 8 innings that had batted, the first two batters were out. Eveytihng happened with two outs.
My roommates invited me to a Friday night game a month or two ago, but I had already made plans to go to happy hour. Oddly enough, MUNI was running slow, and I ended up sitting on a train outside the ballpark for about 20 minutes on my way to the happy hour, watching people file into the stadium.
Four hours later, I’m at another bar when my roommate calls me, screaming “SANCHEZ THREW A NO-HITTER!” I hung up on him, because that was obviously a hoax. I’m still bitter.