He pitched a baseball game that was more than perfect, and yet he lost. Southpaw Harvey Haddix had logged a solid but unspectacular career by the time he took the mound on May 26, 1959. Facing the Milwaukee Braves, he set down the first 36 batters in a row, or 12 innings' worth--a perfect game three innings longer than the norm. But his Pittsburgh Pirates couldn't score, either, and Haddix lost in the 13th inning on a controversial play. This book recounts Haddix's one-of-a-kind performance and describes the official decisions that changed the historical record. “If you want an illumination of one baseball’s most magical games, Freedman serves up a winner in detailing the ‘greatest game ever lost.’”― Baseball Happenings. He pitched a baseball game that was more than perfect, and yet he lost. Southpaw Harvey Haddix had logged an unspectacular career by the time he took the mound on May 26, 1959. Haddix faced the Milwaukee Braves and set down the first 36 batters in a row, or 12 innings' worth--a perfect game three innings longer than the norm. But his Pittsburgh Pirates couldn't score, either, and Haddix lost in the 13th inning on a controversial play. This book recounts Haddix's one-of-a-kind performance and describes the official decisions that changed the historical record. He pitched a baseball game that was more than perfect, and yet he lost. Southpaw Harvey Haddix had logged an unspectacular career by the time he took the mound on May 26, 1959. Haddix faced the Milwaukee Braves and set down the first 36 batters in a row, or 12 innings' worth--a perfect game three innings longer than the norm. But his Pittsburgh Pirates couldn't score, either, and Haddix lost in the 13th inning on a controversial play. This book recounts Haddix's one-of-a-kind performance and describes the official decisions that changed the historical record. Lew Freedman is a long-time, prize-winning journalist for such newspapers as the Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune, Anchorage Daily News, Seymour, Indiana's The Tribune and Wyoming's Cody Enterprise. Specializing in sports and the outdoors, he has written more than 100 books. He lives in Columbus, Indiana.