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Lew Burdette, MVP of '57 World Series, dies at 80

1957 was the year I fell in love with baseball, and the Milwaukee Braves were my team. Burdette pitched three complete game victories in the Series that year against the mighty Yankees, with the last two being shutouts. That was his career high point, and it was mighty high indeed. It was probably the greatest series ever pitched by anyone not named Mathewson, made even more impressive by the fact that Burdette was only the Braves' #2 starter! After that Series the rest of his excellent career had to seem like an anticlimax.

Amazingly enough, he had another moment almost as glorious. In 1960, Harvey Haddix of the Pirates pitched 12 perfect innings against the Braves, then lost the game in the 13th. It's one of the most famous games in baseball history, because Haddix was the first and only pitcher in baseball history to pitch more than nine perfect innings in a game, and he went all the way to 12 before losing. Burdette was the reason he lost, and the reason he had to pitch so many innings. Ol' Lew , a tough old bird from West Virginia, one of those guys who looked fiftyish when in his twenties, went all the way and won that game with 13 shutout innings of his own! Here's the box score of that crazy game