What are the chances of the two greatest pitchers in baseball history facing off in a game? Probably not great, considering it would require two pitchers to have overlapping careers, play in the same league but on different teams, and have their rotation schedules coincide so that they end up starting against each other. However, there just may have been three such games like that in baseball history.
It obviously depends on the answer to the highly subjective question of who the two greatest pitchers in baseball history are. According to Bill James, it's Walter Johnson and Lefty Grove, and I tend to agree with him. I won't get into all of the details as to why I think so in this post, but suffice to say they both have legitimate claims to being the two greatest ever. And they started against each other three times in their careers. So, I decided to take a look at what the outcomes were.
They played in the same league together for just three seasons: the last three of Johnson's career, and the first three of Grove's. So, there are no intense pitcher's duels here, and likely the fans who saw the game didn't appreciate much about it. Likely, all they saw it as was a washed-up veteran against a somewhat decent young player. But in retrospect, these three games probably had the greatest pitching matchups in baseball history, when the whole of a pitcher's career is taken into account.
Game #1 - June 26, 1925, Shibe Park, Philadelphia. Washington Senators 5, Philadelphia A's 3
This was the only one of the three games in which both starters pitched complete games. Neither pitcher was amazing, but Johnson pitched well enough to earn the win, which at the time improved his record to 11-4. Rookie Lefty Grove, on the other hand, gave up five runs and lost the game, lowering his record to 7-5. However, he did strike out 7 batters, compared to none for Johnson. Apparently it was a sign of things to come, because Grove ended up leading the league in strikeouts that year, and for the next six years after that.
Game #2 - September 7, 1925, Shibe Park, Philadelphia. Washington Senators 2, Philadelphia A's 1
In a game that was played exactly 87 years ago yesterday, both Johnson and Grove pitched very well, but in the end it was Johnson again who earned the win. Along the way, he gave up 9 hits but just one run, while Grove, who was taken out after 8 innings, gave up 8 hits and two runs. It was definitely the best-pitched of any of the three games that they started against each other.
Game #3 - April 23, 1926, Shibe Park, Philadelphia. Washington Senators 9, Philadelphia A's 5
Johnson and Grove did not start against each other at all in 1927, so this was the last time they would do so. For Grove, it would turn out to be his last chance to defeat the greatest pitcher in baseball history, but sadly for him he was unable to even record an out. He gave up a hit, two walks, and four runs before being pulled from the game, while Johnson pitched another complete game to give him a 3-0 record against Lefty Grove.
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