Len Barker's Perfect Game

A perfect game is baseball’s rarest magic trick — twenty-seven hitters up, twenty-seven hitters down, no walks, no hits, no errors, no mercy. It’s happened only twenty-six times in more than a century and a half, which means it’s rarer than a lunar eclipse, rarer than a pitcher being struck by lightning, and yet somehow… it keeps happening.

What makes it so strange is that perfection doesn’t always choose the obvious vessel. Yes, there are the masters — men like Sandy Koufax or Randy Johnson, whose names sound like they were built to throw gems. But just as often, perfection taps a journeyman on the shoulder: someone solid, maybe streaky, maybe forgotten, who for one night finds himself throwing unhittable stuff under the stadium lights.

It’s part skill, part luck, and maybe part divine intervention — the baseball gods coming down to lend a curveball a little extra bite. The hitters might be off their rhythm, the wind might knock down a line drive, a second baseman might make a play he’ll never make again.

And on one damp Cleveland night in 1981, that mysterious combination of talent, timing, and something otherworldly settled over a tall right-hander named Len Barker.

Len Barker’s Perfect Night (May 15, 1981)
It was a damp Friday in Cleveland, the kind of night when pitchers usually pray just to grip the ball. Only about seven thousand fans showed up, scattered through cavernous Cleveland Municipal Stadium. “You could hear vendors calling out hot dog orders between pitches,” Barker said later. It felt like any other sleepy spring game — until it wasn’t.

Even the batters could feel it. “How’s a guy supposed to feel when he’s facing fastballs and sliders the way Barker was throwing them?” said Toronto’s Danny Ainge, who would later become an NBA star with the Boston Celtics.

Rick Bosetti, the leadoff man in the ninth, got the pitch he wanted — a hanging slider down the middle — and fouled it off. “Nuts!” he said later. “I couldn’t have asked for it to be in a better spot.”

Barker got some help, too: Duane Kuiper made a slick play at second base, and shortstop Toby Harrah tracked a foul ball near the dugout that could’ve easily landed in the seats. Those are the moments that keep perfection intact — the little breaks that separate history from heartbreak.

Catcher Ron Hassey called it the best game he ever caught. “Lennie had a great curveball and an excellent fastball, but his control was the big thing,” Hassey said. “He threw almost every pitch right where I called for it.” Barker later said that his curveball that night “was as tight as a fist,” and he relied on it about seventy-five percent of the time, topping out at just 91 miles an hour — more than modest by today’s standards.

Ernie Whitt, who made the final out, later joked that he had considered pointing to center field like Babe Ruth “to show where I was going to hit the ball.” Afterward, Barker sounded more amused than awed. “I knew I had good stuff — maybe awesome stuff,” he said. Told later that his fastball averaged 91, he laughed: “Hey, I must be slowing down.” Barker would never again approach that level. He made one All-Star team, signed a big contract, and faded from the game a few years later — a reminder that perfection, in baseball, often visits just once.

The Odds of Perfection
A perfect game isn’t just rare — it’s absurdly rare. We had our AI run the numbers. Just 1 in 10,000 games, rarer than a triple play or an inside-the-park slam. Play Major League Baseball every day for 27 years and you still might never see one. The math is merciless: take the league’s on-base percentage (.325) and raise the chance of an out to the 27th power — (1 - .325)²⁷ ≈ 1 in 10,000.

In 1981, Len Barker wasn’t a random miracle — he was good. Big fastball, wicked curve, league-best strikeout rate the year before. When his control clicked, he was lethal. Adjusting the math for his .295 opponent OBP improves the odds slightly — maybe 1 in 6,000 starts.

And that night, everything helped: the Blue Jays were young and light-hitting (.226 as a team), the air was heavy, the defense airtight, and Barker’s curve was snapping like a whip. 

Even legends like Sandy Koufax, Roy Halladay, and Félix Hernández face odds near 1 in 4,000 per start. Greatness tilts the math, but perfection still demands something cosmic — skill, luck, and maybe a trick of the wind. Those three did throw perfect games but so many stars did not — Pedro Martinez, Walter Johnson, Roger Clemens, Nolan Ryan, Bob Gibson and Whitey Ford to name a few.

Who’s Next?

We had our AI take a shot at who's most likely to be next — factoring in strikeout rate, walk rate, age, and intangibles.
The result? George Kirby.

George Kirby’s surgical command, whiff-friendly stuff, and smooth rhythm make him the modern prototype for perfection. But with an event so rare, we wouldn't advise putting money on it.