On September 2, 2001, New York Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina came within one strike of throwing a perfect game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. He retired the first 26 batters he faced, struck out 13, and then -- with the entire ballpark holding its breath (yes, even Fenway) -- Carl Everett dumped a bloop single to left-center on a 1-2 count. One strike away. One lousy strike. Mussina finished with a one-hit shutout and a 1-0 win, which sounds great on paper until you remember what it almost was.
I'm still not over it. Nine days before the world changed, Mussina was one pitch from baseball immortality, and a dying-quail blooper stole it from him.
Setting the Scene
Fenway Park. Yankees-Red Sox. A Sunday afternoon in early September with the pennant race already locked up -- the Yankees led the AL East by double digits -- but try telling Mussina that this game didn't matter. The guy pitched every start like he was defending a doctoral thesis. (His teammates called him "Moose," but I always thought "The Professor" fit better. The man attacked hitters like he'd studied them under a microscope, because he had.)
Mussina's stuff that day was absurd. His fastball had late life, his curveball was dropping off a table, and the Red Sox couldn't touch him. One inning bled into the next -- three up, three down, over and over. By the sixth inning, the Fenway crowd knew what was happening. By the eighth, they were actively rooting for a Yankee pitcher to finish them off. That's how you know something special is unfolding -- when the opposing fans abandon their own team to watch history.
The Count
Through eight innings: 24 batters faced, 24 batters retired. No hits, no walks, no errors, no hit batters. Perfect.
The ninth started the same way. Troy Nixon flew out. Lou Merloni struck out -- Mussina's 13th K of the afternoon. Two outs in the ninth. One batter between Mussina and a perfect game. Between Mussina and Don Larsen and David Cone in the Yankees' record books. Between Mussina and forever.
Boston sent Carl Everett to the plate as a pinch-hitter for catcher Joe Oliver. Mussina got ahead in the count, 1-2. One strike away. He threw a high fastball -- it caught a little too much of the plate, and Everett, a free-swinger who'd been sitting on the bench all game, fought it off. The ball floated toward left-center field. A bloop. A nothing ball. A dying quail that landed softly on the grass while 33,000 people groaned.
Single. Perfection gone.
The Aftermath
Mussina got the next batter to end the game. The 1-0 win was the kind of performance that would define most pitchers' careers -- a one-hit shutout with 13 strikeouts at Fenway Park. His Game Score of 98 was among the best in franchise history. Jorge Posada was behind the plate, and even he looked sick when Everett's blooper fell.
"I'm going to think about that pitch until I retire," Mussina said afterward. (And knowing Mussina, he probably did. The guy remembered every pitch he ever threw.)
Joe Torre put it simply: "He got ahead of Everett, who is a free swinger, but Moose threw a high fastball that got a little too much of the plate." That's baseball. You can be perfect for eight and two-thirds innings and lose it all on one pitch that's a half-inch off.
The Cruelest Kind of Near-Miss
Here's what gets me about this game. It wasn't a line drive that broke it up. It wasn't a walk on a borderline 3-2 pitch. It was a BLOOP. The weakest possible contact. Everett didn't hit that ball hard enough to reach the warning track -- he barely hit it hard enough to reach the outfield grass. If Mussina had gotten one more inch of movement on that fastball, Everett swings through it, the umpire's fist goes up, and we're talking about one of the greatest pitching performances in baseball history instead of one of the most agonizing.
The closest a Yankee had come to perfection since David Cone's perfect game on July 18, 1999 -- just two years earlier. Cone got his 27th out. Mussina got 26 and then watched a freakin' blooper ruin everything.
Mussina's Career in a Sentence
That near-perfect game defined something about Mussina's entire career: brilliant, consistent, agonizingly close to the ultimate milestones. He never won a Cy Young Award despite years of elite pitching. He didn't win his 270th game until his final season at age 39. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2019, and even that took six years on the ballot. Everything about Mussina's career was "almost" -- and September 2, 2001 was the most painful "almost" of them all.
Nine days later, nobody was thinking about baseball anymore. The September 11 attacks shut down the sport and the country, and Mussina's near-perfect game became the last great individual pitching performance before the world changed. That's not the kind of footnote anyone wanted.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Mike Mussina ever throw a perfect game?
No. Mussina came one strike away on September 2, 2001, at Fenway Park against the Boston Red Sox. He retired the first 26 batters before Carl Everett hit a bloop single to left-center on a 1-2 count. Mussina completed the one-hit shutout, winning 1-0 with 13 strikeouts.
Who broke up Mussina's perfect game?
Carl Everett of the Boston Red Sox, pinch-hitting for catcher Joe Oliver in the ninth inning. Everett fought off a 1-2 high fastball and dropped a bloop single into left-center field. It was the only hit Mussina allowed in the game.
How many Yankees have thrown a perfect game?
Two: Don Larsen (October 8, 1956, World Series Game 5 vs. Brooklyn Dodgers) and David Cone (July 18, 1999, vs. Montreal Expos). Mussina's September 2, 2001 start at Fenway came the closest to a third.
One strike. That's the distance between a line in the record books and a really good game that most people have forgotten. Mussina threw 26 perfect outs and got a one-hit shutout. Cone threw 27 perfect outs and got a page in the encyclopedia. Baseball can be that cruel -- and it was, on a Sunday afternoon at Fenway, with one strike to go.