Tom Seaver flirted with perfection, and now the Mets are flirting with the unimaginable – a run at first place.

It was clear from the first inning onward that the Mets’ young ace brought his good stuff to the ballpark.  He struck out Don Kessinger to start the game and retired the side in order in the first. In the bottom of the inning, Tommie Agee led off with a triple and rookie Bobby Pfeil followed with a double off Chicago’s Ken Holtzman to score the game’s first run.  Although the Mets would add three more in the game, one on a Cleon Jones homer, Agee’s was all they would need as Seaver pitched the game of his life.

New York’s 24-year-old hurler struck out the side in the second. He sent the Cubs down 1-2-3 in the third, and then again in the fourth.  As he would later comment, “I was aware from the fourth inning on that I had a perfect game, and I was going for it.”

By 1969, only eight pitchers in the entire history of baseball had recorded a perfect game – that is, allowing not one opposing batter to reach base on either a hit, walk, error, or getting hit by a pitch.  That’s nine consecutive 1-2-3 innings…27 batters up, 27 batters out.

After he got relief pitcher Ted Abernathy on strikes to end the top of the 6th, Seaver had gone through the Chicago lineup twice without a blemish. He took on the top of the order again in the seventh, getting Don Kessinger and Glenn Beckert on flyouts and Billy Williams on a groundout. Ron Santo flied out to lead off the eighth.  Still going strong, Seaver struck out both Ernie Banks and Al Spangler. 

When Seaver came to bat in the bottom of the inning, the game stopped for nearly two minutes as the Shea crowd stood in applause for the most dominant performance by a Mets pitcher they had ever seen.

In the top of the ninth and the game all but in hand, Seaver took the mound just three outs from baseball immortality. He got Randy Hundley out weakly, pitcher to first. Up next was the 8th-place hitter, Jim Qualls, a seldom-played rookie who brought a .244 average into the game. Seaver wound up and delivered a pitch, and Qualls blooped it into leftfield for a soft hit, not far from where Ed Kranepool’s game-winner had landed the previous night.

The quest for the perfect game was over, but the home crowd stood and cheered again in recognition of Seaver’s outstanding night. Visibly disappointed, he collected his emotions and retired pinch-hitter Willie Smith on a foul pop-up and then got Don Kessinger to fly out to leftfield for the game’s final out.

Seaver’s pitching performance would go down in Mets memory as The Imperfect Game. “That was the best game I ever pitched,” he’d later say. “It was better than my no-hitter with Cincinnati. I had great stuff that night, superb control, and a mastery of all my pitches. It was obvious even before the game.”

And it was now obvious that the Chicago Cubs had serious competition in the N.L. East.

Mets 4, Cubs 0.  W: Seaver (14-3)  L: Holtzman (10-5)

Chicago Cubs                 AB   R   H RBI      BB  SO 
Kessinger ss                  4   0   0   0       0   2
Beckert 2b                    3   0   0   0       0   0
Williams lf                   3   0   0   0       0   1
Santo 3b                      3   0   0   0       0   1
Banks 1b                      3   0   0   0       0   2
Spangler rf                   3   0   0   0       0   3
Hundley c                     3   0   0   0       0   0
Qualls cf                     3   0   1   0       0   0
Holtzman p                    0   0   0   0       0   0
  Abernathy p                 2   0   0   0       0   2
  W. Smith ph                 1   0   0   0       0   0
Totals                       28   0   1   0       0  11

New York Mets                IP     H   R  ER  BB  SO  HR BFP
Seaver W (14-3)               9     1   0   0   0  11   0  28

Team Name                        W    L    T   PCT    GB
Chicago Cubs                    52   33    1  .612     -
New York Mets                   47   34    0  .580   3.0
Pittsburgh Pirates              41   43    0  .488  10.5
St. Louis Cardinals             42   45    0  .483  11.0
Philadelphia Phillies           37   45    0  .451  13.5
Montreal Expos                  26   58    0  .310  25.5

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