Jim Bunning's perfect Father's Day game

He stood on that little hillock in the middle of the diamond, 6-feet-3 and rawhide lean, with a gunfighter's glare, and he towered over them and looked down with imperious scorn, and they pawed nervously at the batter's box dirt, hesitant to dig in against his fastball that hissed like a rattler or the breaking ball that danced like a Frisbee in a high wind, leaving them flailing impotently.

Because he is on today, the Man on the Mound is. It becomes obvious after he saws through the opposing lineup methodically early on and when he gets away with mistake sliders up high and all they can do is foul them off. So then, a little bit of luck and then, yes sir, strap it on, Boys, the Man on the Mound has brought his A-Number-1 stuff today.

He looks, well, unhittable.

He looks, in fact, perfect.

Shut your mouth, Pilgrim.

It is the most sacrosanct superstition in all of baseball: If your pitcher is flirting with a no-hitter, thou shall not mention it.

But that is only the beginning of the rule filed under hexes and jinxes. You must treat him as though he were a leper. You must not only observe an unshakable code of lock-lipped silence, you must make sure that your teammates are studiously obeying, as well, and are staying downwind.

So here we are, half a century later, a day in mid-summer . . . one shimmering with possibility . . . June 21, 1964 . . . a Sunday . . . Father's Day . . . Shea Stadium, home of the New York Metropolitans, who are playing the Philadelphia Phillies in a doubleheader, and in the process in the first game are about to make history because on this day the Man on the Mound, James Paul David Bunning, is, indeed, unhittable . . . is, in fact, perfect.

And he is driving them crazy.

He won't shut up. To the horror of his teammates he chatters merrily away while they scramble frantically to avoid him.

"It was the strangest thing," said Johnny Callison, the rightfielder. "You don't talk when you have a no-hitter, right? But he was going up and down the bench and telling everybody what was going on. Everybody tried to get away from him, but he was so wired that he followed us around."

In his book Jim Bunning: Baseball and Beyond, Frank Dolson, then the Inquirer sports columnist, quotes Gus Triandos, the man who was catching perfection, recounting: "He was really silly. He was jabbering like a magpie."

But the Man on the Mound says there was a method to his madness.

"The other guys thought I was crazy, but I didn't want anyone tightening up. Most of all I didn't want to tighten up myself. Earlier in the year I blew a no-hitter against Houston keeping my mouth shut, and I promised myself if I got in that position again I was talking. I didn't want any tension."

And so with 25 batters down and only two to go, the Man on the Mound summons his catcher.

Triandos: "He calls me out and says I should tell him a joke or something, just to give him a breather. I couldn't think of any; I just laughed at him."

The Mets tried to stack the deck. They sent up two lefthanded pinch hitters back to back, George Altman and then John Stephenson. The same fate awaited them . . . and immortality awaited Jim Bunning.

Strike three . . . strike three.

He threw an economical 90 pitches, and his control was surgical: 69 strikes, 21 balls.

Pitches by innings: 8, 11, 8, 12, 9, 7, 10, 12, 13.

No walks. Ten strikeouts.

He dominated, so precise that there were only two close calls, the first in the bottom of the fifth inning when Jesse Gonder lashed a line drive that was headed for open spaces. But it was intercepted by Tony Taylor, the second baseman, who dove, all out, knocked the ball down, crawled after it, and got Gonder at first.

In the seventh, third baseman Richie Allen made a slick stop of a Ron Hunt smash. From then on Jim Bunning had the cold-steel look of the inevitable. He ended it by striking out Stephenson on nothing but curveballs, five of them, each one more nasty than the previous one.

Never one to show much emotion, he allowed himself a modest celebratory fist in his glove and then braced himself for the mob rushing at him. It was OK now; they could talk to him. The jinx of silence was broken.

Across the field, in a nice touch of class, the Mets gave him a standing ovation.

And then, out of the bleachers came two women, running to enfold him in a giddy embrace.

Mary Bunning, Wife of the Man on the Mound.

Barbara Bunning, oldest daughter, one of seven children of the Man on the Mound. They had driven from Philadelphia up the New Jersey Turnpike for the World's Fair and then the game.

So you see, this was perfect in so many enchanting ways.

And it will forever be remembered as the Perfect Father's Day.

For a lot of reasons . . .

This was Jim Bunning's second no-hitter. On July 20, 1958, pitching for the Detroit Tigers, he threw a no-no against the Boston Red Sox, and just to sweeten that performance, the last batter was Ted Williams, the man many consider to be the greatest hitter who ever lived. He flied out meekly.

So then, first a no-hitter in the American League and then, six years later, one in the National League.

One might think that's probably fairly rare, a no-hitter in both leagues. One would be correct. The complete list of those who have done it:

Cy Young.

Jim Bunning.

Jim Bunning's Perfect Father's Day game was played in a tidy 2 hours and 19 minutes. The official attendance was 32,026. His record improved to 7 and 2. He would end up a stellar Hall of Fame career with 224 wins, an ERA of 3.27, and at that time 17th place on the all-time strikeout list with 2,855.

But while the perfect game represented Mountain High for the 1964 Phillies, Valley Low, their epic collapse in that torturous home stretch, was still three months away.

Postscript 1: Ed Sullivan invited Bunning to appear on his popular Sunday night variety show. He received $1,000.

Postscript 2: The Bunnings used it to add a pool and bathhouse to their home in Kentucky.

Postscript 3: Yes, from time to time he watches the tape of that game: "If somebody asks. But I only have the last six outs."

Postscript 4: He is 82 and sounds like 22: "Never felt better. No artificial hips or legs or any of that. And my right arm, it's like I never threw a pitch."