When ElRoy Face Went 18-1

Exactly 30 golden summers ago, a Pittsburgh Pirates’ pitcher was so unexpectedly brilliant, so unfailingly successful and so uncannily neared perfection that he rewrote the standard by which pitching was judged.

The year was 1959, and it was one of the last few remaining innocent American summers. There had been no Cuban missile crisis, no JFK assassination, no ghetto riots. Ike was president, pro football had yet to grab the sports psyche of the country and baseball was the national pastime.

And for one dazzling, unprecedented and unpredictable summer, ElRoy Face was perfect.

Well, almost perfect.

No major-league pitcher before or since has had the kind of season that the 5-foot-8 Pittsburgh Pirates’ reliever enjoyed in the Summer of ’59. His teammate, Harvey Haddix, was perfect for 12 innings one magnificent May night that same summer, but no pitcher had ever been perfect for a whole season.

For one glorious season in the sun, baseball spun crazily on its axis of tradition and did an about-Face.

The right-hander was on the mound nearly every time a Pirates’ game was decided in the late innings, but Face never lost a game from May 30, 1958, until Sept. 11, 1959 -- a span of 22 consecutive victories in 97 non-losing appearances.

Face won his first 17 games in 1959 before finishing with an 18-1 record and .947 winning percentage, still a major-league record. And, although statisticans had yet to invent the save, it was later calculated Face had 10 saves.

Ron Guidry was nearly unbeatable in clutch games during his brilliant 25-3 season for the New York Yankees in 1978, and Steve Carlton won 27 games, including 15 in a row, for a last-place Phillies’ club in 1972, but no pitcher has ever flirted with perfection the way ElRoy Face did.

“It was one of those years when nothing went wrong,” said Face, 61, now a carpentry foreman at Mayview State Hospital in Pittsburgh. “No pitcher’s ever had a season like it. It’s a record that’s never been broken.”

Face wasn’t big -- he weighed only 155 pounds -- but he had a big weapon in his trademark forkball.

A paralyzing pitch that was the forerunner of the split-fingered fastball, the forkball looked like a fastball when released, but sank like a rock when it neared the plate at change-up speed.

Face so mastered the elusive forkball after learning it from former Brooklyn reliever Joe Page in 1954 that he came within two victories of matching Carl Hubbell’s record streak of 24 consecutive victories.

After beating the Reds 9-8 on April 22 when the Pirates rallied from a 7-0 deficit -- his sixth straight victory dating to 1958 -- Face didn’t lose until Dodgers utilityman Charlie Neal’s RBI single beat him 5-4 on Sept. 11 in the Los Angeles Coliseum.

Face tiptoed around disaster like a baseball version of Indiana Jones, avoiding defeat through a daredevilish scenario of gutty pitching, brilliant timing and unbelievable luck.

“The only word you could use to describe it was amazing,” Haddix said. “He was always a good pitcher -- he was the best relief pitcher of his time, without question -- but that season he was beyond good. And, believe me, he was that good.”

How good? This good:

-- May 12: The Pirates trailed Los Angeles 4-3 when Face entered in the seventh, but Dick Stuart’s two-run homer in the eighth made them 5-4 winners.

-- June 8: Face pitches three shutout innings and the Pirates beat San Francisco 12-9 on Harry Bright’s pinch homer in the 11th. By now, Face is 8-0 “and people are starting to pay attention,” he said.

-- June 18, Face pitches five shutout innings with the game tied 2-2 and the Pirates beat Chicago 4-2 in 13 innings.

-- July 12, Face gives up a run in the ninth, but the Pirates rally to beat St. Louis 6-5 in the 10th on Roberto Clemente’s RBI single. Face was 13-0 at the All-Star break.

Even when Face was less than brilliant, the Pirates weren’t.

They were 19-2 in extra-inning games during what was otherwise a routine fourth-place season -- Haddix’s perfect game was one of the two losses -- and they had an uncanny knack of getting Face off the hook.

Face gave up a two-run double against Philadelphia on April 24, but the Pirates won 9-8 with four runs in the ninth. On June 11, he allowed a three-run pinch homer to San Francisco’s Willie Mays with the Pirates ahead 7-5, but Pittsburgh scored five runs in its half of the inning. On Aug. 30, Face gave up a homer to the Phillies’ Ed Bouchee, but Stuart’s two-run double won it 7-6 in the bottom of the 10th.

“He got seven of my victories that season,” said former Pirates’ starter Vern Law, only half-kidding.

What makes Face’s season all the more remarkable is that major league teams didn’t have closers, set-up men or holders in 1959.

Today, the premier closers -- John Franco, Dennis Eckersley, Mark Davis -- rarely pitch unless their team leads. Face was his own setup man, often pitching the seventh and eighth innings before finishing up himself in the ninth.

Milwaukee’s Dan Plesac led the American League with 24 saves on Aug. 1, yet had pitched just 41 1-3 innings in 35 games. In 1959, Face worked 93 innings in 57 games; he finished his career with 1,375 innings.

“We (the Pirates starters) always had the feeling that if you got into the seventh inning, ElRoy would take care of you,” Haddix said.

Before Face, most relief pitchers were merely failed starters, other than few rare exceptions such as Joe Page and Jim Konstanty. Hoyt Wilhelm, the only reliever in the Hall of Fame, and Face ushered in a new era, and within a few years most good teams had relief specialists such as Lindy McDaniel and Stu Miller.

“(Former Pirates vice president) Tom Johnson asked me once how much money I’d make today,” Face said. “I told him he’d be working for me.”

Unlike some star relievers whose effectiveness was short-lived -- Dick Radatz, Butch Metzger, Rawley Eastwick -- Face was no one-season wonder. Only a handful of relievers enjoyed Face’s longevity; he made 614 consecutive relief appearances in 15 Pirates’ seasons until going to Detroit in 1968.

“He was the toughest reliever I ever faced,” Hall of Famer Stan Musial said.

Face, nicknamed the “Baron of the Bullpen,” by late Pirates announcer Bob Prince, was 10-8 with 24 saves for the Pirates’ 1960 world champions and saved three World Series games. He had 28 saves (relievers then got a save only if they faced the potential tying or winning run) and a 1.88 ERA in 1962.

In 1966, at age 38, an ancient age for a reliever, he had 18 saves in 54 games.

“If I had pitched in New York or Los Angeles or St. Louis, I’d be in the Hall of Fame,” Face said. “But I played most of my career in Pittsburgh. Look how it hurt Bill Mazeroski, playing here his whole career. I really haven’t gotten a lot of attention (for his 18-1 season), and it shows in the Hall of Fame voting.”

Face, who retired from baseball at age 42, faces retirement again next spring at age 62. He will retire from his carpentry job and wants to travel the country in his motor home, visiting old teammates.

“ElRoy was always the same,” Haddix said. “If he’d won, he’d sit in front of his locker and have a beer. If he’d lost, he’d sit in front of his locker and have a beer. He had the perfect temperment for a reliever.”