40 Years Ago

What's considered to be the greatest college baseball game of all time was played on May 21, 1981, featuring future MLB All-Star pitchers Ron Darling and Frank Viola. Check out these stats:

Ron Darling, Yale: 12 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 5 BB, 16 K, 190 pitches thrown, no-hitter through 11
Frank Viola, St. John's: 11 IP, 7 H, 0 R, 4 BB, 8 K, 160+ pitches thrown

And here's what really jumps out:

Roger Angell was in the crowd with Smoky Joe Wood. Smoky Joe was 91 years old, and Angell had leveraged Yale's success and this pitching matchup to lure Wood out to the ballpark for an interview. Wood tracked the game time on a pocket watch given to him to commemorate his four-appearance, three-win heroics in the 1912 World Series, when he outdueled Christy Mathewson to clinch the title in Fenway Park to close out the ballpark's inaugural season. That same year, he won a much-hyped showdown against Walter "Big Train" Johnson. 

Smoky Joe Wood?!??!?!? That name is one of those mystical names of figures that I assume weren't real people, yet here he was in the stands watching, probably bitching about the flat beer and shitty peanuts. He died in 1985, meaning Smoky Joe Wood was alive when, say, Family Ties was in its prime. Wtf. 

As Angell put it in his story:

I think I will remember it all my life. So will Joe Wood. Somebody will probably tell Ron Darling that Smoky Joe Wood was at the game that afternoon and saw him pitch eleven scoreless no-hit innings against St. John's, and someday -- perhaps years from now, when he, too, may possibly be a celebrated major-league strikeout artist -- it may occur to him that his heartbreaking 0-1 loss in May 1981 and Walter Johnson's loss at Fenway Park in September 1912 are now woven together into the fabric of baseball. Pitch by pitch, inning by inning, Ron Darling made that happen. He stitched us together.

The epilogue:

In 1986, Darling, like Smoky Joe Wood, made four appearances in the World Series and, like Wood, earned a win at Fenway Park as the New York Mets defeated the Red Sox in seven games. The following fall, Viola was awarded World Series MVP as the Minnesota Twins came from behind to defeat the St. Louis Cardinals. In 1989, they became Mets teammates.

Aaaaaaand Roger Angell manages to blow this historic moment by signaling White Power. Goddammit.