The day Atlantic Shore Babe Ruth all-star lefty Matt Lawler found perfection on the pitching mound

By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Publisher Pitching a perfect game was the farthest thing from Matt Lawler’s mind when he toed the rubber to start the Babe Ruth state tournament in the 15-year-old division. He had just found out he was going to be the starting pitcher 20 minutes earlier. His arm wasn’t even completely loose yet. A perfect game is one of the rarest baseball accomplishments. In Major League Baseball history there have been just 23 of them. And that’s since 1880. “I found out (I was pitching) about 20 minutes before the game, so I was a little nervous,” said Lawler, a 15-year-old rising sophomore left-hander at Mainland Regional High School. “I didn’t know because I pitched the first game at districts and didn’t do so well, then I didn’t really pitch much the rest of districts.” For the uninitiated, a perfect game at the Babe Ruth level means a pitcher has to get 21 consecutive batters out, since at that level games are seven innings. Twenty-one batters in a row, no walks, no hits, and more importantly, no errors by the defense. That’s a difficult task on any level, and even more so at the Babe Ruth level, where players have only been competing on regulation size fields for two years. Lawler said he felt pretty good in warm-ups, but had no idea he had the stuff to retire 21 straight hitters. “My arm felt really good. My curveball and change-up were working so I thought, ‘OK, if I have those two pitches working I’ll do well.’ But I didn’t expect to do that good,” he said. Matt Lawler, a 15-year-old Northfield resident, enjoyed a bit of baseball immortality in late July, pitching a perfect game during the Babe Ruth state tournament. (Glory Days Magazine photos/Dave O’Sullivan) He nearly lost the perfect game, a 10-0 victory over Brick American, by going to a 3-and-2 count on the first batter of the game. “I usually walk the first batter of the game because I’m not really warmed up yet. I went 3-2 on him and got him to swing at a curveball. Then I just kept going. Around the fourth inning the guys were like, ‘man, you have a perfect game going.’ So every inning I went out (to the mound) I just knocked on wood and hoped I could keep it going.” The first three or four innings were pretty uneventful, Lawler said, as he kept Brick American off balanced by mixing in his off-speed pitches with his fastball. In just about every no-hitter or perfect game there is a stellar defensive play that helps saves the day, and this game was no different. In the later innings, a Brick American hitter launched a deep drive to center field that Anthony Pikus was able to run down and make a play on to keep the perfect game intact. “I was a little scared. I didn’t really want to lose it at that point,” Lawler said. “But we were hitting really good that game and the team was making plays. They really backed me up a lot.” Lawler’s teammates decided to have a little fun with him to keep the mood loose in the dugout, telling Lawler that a relief pitcher was scheduled to replace him in the sixth inning. “I was a little nervous at that point that I was going to get taken out,” Lawler said. “They had their 3-4-5 hitters coming up. I started out the No. 3 hitter with three straight curveballs and struck him out, then just went after the Nos. 4 and 5 hitters.” Lawler got a groundout and a pop-up to get out of the sixth, leaving just three more outs to go to record a perfect game. His biggest enemy, however, proved to be the weather. With skies threatening to release rain that might interrupt or suspend the game, umpires were trying to speed things along. Lawler said he threw only two warm-up pitches in the bottom of the seventh inning. “Every time there was a strike (in the seventh inning) I just got the ball back, turned around really quickly and got right back on the rubber,” Lawler said. “I struck out the first kid, the second kid popped up to second base, then I struck out the last kid. On the second batter I had a 3-2 count. My arms were shaking and on one of the pitches I lost my grip on it and it just floated in there for a strike.” Lawler’s father, also named Matt, wasn’t able to be on hand for the game as he was umpiring a game, but Matt’s mother, Debbie, was there. Matt said she isn’t a huge baseball nut and wasn’t exactly sure what a perfect game was until some of the fathers from the team explained what a rare feat it is. “My dad said it was awesome and that he’s never seen that in all the innings he has umped,” Lawler said. “(My mom) isn’t really a big baseball person. She didn’t really know what a perfect game was. She knew I was pitching well. I think she was more proud of my hitting because I went 2-for-2. “It still hasn’t really hit me. A lot of MLB pitchers don’t even get a chance to pitch a perfect game. Pitching a perfect game is such a cool feeling.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays [adsense]