The Immaculate Inning That Wasn't

Hi Everyone —

Happy Summer Solstice! If it feels like the days are getting longer and longer, well, they are.

Still working 24 hours a day on the book — deadline is 11 days away! Thank you to everyone who has written in to say, “WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT STOP TEASING US AND JUST TELL US ALREADY THIS IS RIDICULOUS.” Soon. I promise.*

*Though in saying that I realize that I sound like the annoying kid at camp who keeps telling the “Patience, jackass, patience” joke, which if you have not heard (maybe that kid was only at my summer camp?) involves someone riding his donkey through the desert, only it’s a talking donkey — like in Shrek — and the donkey keeps asking when they will get to their destination — like in Shrek — and the rider says “Patience, jackass, patience.” And this repeats and repeats and repeats until finally the person hearing the joke says, “Is there a punchline anywhere in our future,” to which the annoying kid says “Patience, jackass, patience,” and then howls like he just killed on stage with Richard Pryor. Whew, I hope I don’t sound like that kid. He still haunts my nightmares.

Got a bunch of fun things for you — we’re dropping a new emergency PosCast today to replace the last emergency PosCast because we recorded the last one BEFORE the Red Sox traded Rafael Devers. If you’re wondering if Mike has any thoughts about the Devers trade, um, yes, he does.

Also, below, I post my really great interview with Tommy Tomlinson, author of this month’s JoeBlogs Book of the Month, Dogland. I can say humbly, it’s really great because Tommy did all the work.

But first, yeah, I have to talk about that immaculate inning spoiled. I should be getting back to the book, but when an umpire ruins perfection, you’re duty-bound to investigate.

Reminder: My Bruce Springsteen collection, Just Sittin’ Round Here Tryin’ to Write This Book is on sale as a PDF for $10 — just in time for the Boss’ release of “Tracks II: The Lost Albums.” The collection includes my most personal essay, The Promise, which The Atlantic named one of “Nearly 100 Fantastic Pieces of Journalism.” That was nice of them.

👉 Buy Just Sittin’ Round Here Tryin’ to Write This Book

OK, did you know that from 1929-52, there was ONE immaculate inning — that is, three strikeouts on nine pitches? One. Just one. And if you can name that one person off the top of your head, well, you know a whole lot more about baseball than I do.

But you probably already knew that.

Lefty Grove threw an immaculate inning against the White Sox at the end of the 1928 season. It was Grove’s second immaculate inning in a month, which is bonkers because up to that point, there had only been six immaculate innings in the history of baseball. It barely drew mention in the newspapers, though. People were more excited about the home run that Grove hit in the game.

Then in 1953, Billy Hoeft did it — also against the White Sox.

One person did it in between.

And that one person was Lynn “Line Drive” Nelson. Why did they call him “Line Drive?” Well, he liked to say it was because he was quite a good hitter for a pitcher, and he really was. Nelson was a lifetime .281 hitter over his seven-year career and was sometimes used as a pinch hitter.

But, no, he was called “Line Drive” because of all the line drives he gave up as a young pitcher with the Cubs. The hitters never really stopped cracking line drives off Nelson; he finished his career with a 5.25 ERA, and he led the league in homers allowed when Philadelphia gave him regular duty in 1939.

He took it all in pretty good spirits. And anyway, he had his one day, May 17, 1937. His A’s were playing the Yankees, and the Yankees knocked three consecutive hits to start the game against Bud Thomas. That’s when Connie Mack called to the bullpen for Line Drive Nelson. He was fantastic. He pitched nine shutout innings and outdueled Lefty Gomez for the win.

And, in the sixth inning, he went out to face future Hall of Famers Tony Lazzeri and Lefty Gomez, and All-Star Frankie Crossetti, who had homered back in the first inning.

Line Drive Nelson struck ‘em out on nine pitches.

Baseball, man. How can you not be romantic about baseball?

The immaculate inning is not a super-big deal anymore because strikeouts and hard-throwing relievers are ubiquitous. There have been 17 immaculate innings in the last five years. Heck, in 2022, there were two immaculate innings in the SAME GAME. There has already been an immaculate inning in 2025; Cal Quantril threw one for the Marlins a month ago.

STILL, they’re pretty cool, and on Thursday night, the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto had one. He HAD IT. In the third inning, he struck out San Diego’s Bryce Johnson on three pitches. Then he struck out Martin Maldonado on three pitches. And then he had Fernando Tatis Jr. down 0-2 when he threw this pitch:

I’ll bet home plate umpire Marvin Hudson thoroughly enjoyed having his name called out like that. But, I mean, he deserved it. That’s a bad ball-strike call. Home plate umpires often get a raw deal because they really are better than they’ve ever been, but it doesn’t seem that way because of all the strike zone technology available to us.

This, though, was an old-fashioned awful ball-strike call.

Put it this way: That pitch was thrown in Attack zone 2, as you can see here:

There have been 2,434 Attack Zone 2 pitches thrown this year that were not hit or fouled off — 2,412 of them were called strikes. That’s 99.1%. I looked at the other 21 that were called balls (because that’s what we do here at JoeBlogs) and here’s what I found:

— 7 of them were fastballs that the umpire just missed, total blown calls.

— 7 of them were pitches with a lot of break. Still bad calls by the umpire, but maybe they just got fooled.

— 4 of them were pitches at the very top of Attack Zone 2 — they were missed calls, yes, but a lot closer to a ball than the others.

— 2 of them were pitches where the batter tried to bunt or hold up a check swing — that might have obstructed the ump.

— 1 bounced off the glove of the catcher, which probably messed up the umpire.

I actually started jotting down some of the things the announcers said after the blown calls. Here are my favorites:

“Strike 1”
— Minnesota’s Joe Ryan vs. Toronto (they were so convinced it was a strike that they put it up that way on the television scorebug).

“What was that? Should have been strike three.”
— Pittsburgh’s Tanney Rainey vs. the Brewers.

Announcer 1: “That pitch is upstairs. One and one.”
Announcer 2: “Is it?”
— Tampa Bay’s Garrett Cleavinger vs. the Astros

Toronto announcer: “And a break there.”
— Detroit’s Jack Flaherty vs. the Blue Jays (Flaherty actually got hosed on TWO Attack Zone 2 strikes in that same game, both against Vladimir Guerrero).

“Don’t know where Lance Barrett had that one.”
— Mets’ José Buttó vs. the Nationals.

“Huh. Presumably high.”
— Dodgers’ Tyler Glasnow vs. the Rangers

Annnoucer 1: “Oooh.”
Announcer 2: “Did they call that a ball?”
— Dodgers’ Landon Knack vs. the Nationals

But having looked at them all now, I can tell you Yamamoto’s was by far the most egregious call. I mean, yes, it was particularly egregious because of the situation, because of the immaculate inning at stake, but I’m talking purely from the obviousness of the pitch. That was about as simple a strike call as an umpire will get all season. Marvin Hudson did not have to be immaculate. He just had to be adequate.

As most of you know, we started a JoeBlogs Nonfiction Book of the Month Club here in June, and our first choice is Tommy’s wonderful book: Dogland.

Tommy and I have been friends for, well, we estimate 173 years. So this conversation turned out to be about a whole lot of things, starting with dogs and his wonderful book, but winding around to the joys and challenges of being a writer, the importance of noticing the small things, and how absurd it is that Superman movies have not had Krypto before. It was such a fun conversation — hope you enjoy!

And buy Dogland! We’re hearing such great things from Brilliant Readers who have.