#13 09/30/84 – Arlington Stadium, Texas - Mike Witt’s Perfect Game

By the final game of the 1984 season, the Angels had already been eliminated from postseason play. Yet a win would mean the difference between second and third place; and they’d avoid finishing with a losing record. Their budding ace, Mike Witt, took the mound with a shot at his 15^th win of the season vs. Texas’s Charlie Hough.

In the third, Angels’ RF Mike Brown led off with a triple, but the Angels were unable to push him across the plate. After six, the score remained scoreless. Hough had allowed three hits, and two walks; but Witt had retired all 18 men he’d faced.

In the seventh, Doug DeCinces led off with a single. A passed ball advanced him to second. He then took third on Brian Downing’s groundout to 2B, and scored on the fielder’s choice of Reggie Jackson’s groundball for an unearned run.

It would prove to be the only run of the afternoon. In the ninth, Witt took the mound with a chance to make history. He struck out Tom Dunbar for his tenth strikeout of the game. Pinch hitter Bob Jones grounded out to Rob Wilfong for the second out. Pinch hitter Marv Foley followed suit with another grounder to Wilfong. Rob tossed it over to Bobby Grich at first for the final out of the game.

Twenty-seven up, twenty-seven down; Mike Witt completed the only perfect game in Angels’ history – and the 11^th in Major League history. The lanky right-hander would later combine with Mark Langston for a no-hitter in Langston’s first start as an Angel on April 11, 1990.