Vintage Fridays: Milt Pappas, 1964 Topps #45

10 Fun Facts About Milt Pappas:

1. His birth name is Miltiades Stergios Pappastediodis.

2. Milt is from Detroit. As a high school senior, he took the advice of former Tigers pitcher (and Orioles scout) Hal Newhouser and signed with the O's. Thirty-five years later, Newhouser became enchanted with another local high schooler named Derek Jeter. When the Astros ignored Hal's advice and drafted Phil Nevin instead, Newhouser retired.

3. To protest commissioner Ford Frick's "ridiculous" ruling that Roger Maris would have an asterisk by his name in the record books if he took more than 154 games to break Babe Ruth's home run record (the regular season having been expanded from 154 to 162 games since Ruth set the record of 60 in 1920), Pappas threw Maris nothing but fastballs in an O's-Yankees game - game 154, to be exact. Maris just missed a homer in his first at-bat, but bashed #59 in his second at-bat. Pappas was removed in the third inning.

4. Milt lost a no-hitter in the eighth inning against Minnesota on September 2, 1964, when Zoilo Versalles singled with two out. Eight years later (as a Cub), he no-hit the Padres. In that game, he lost a perfect game with one out to go by throwing four straight balls with an 0-2 count on pinch hitter Larry Stahl. Home plate umpire Bruce Froemming has received a lot of scrutiny for squeezing the strike zone in that at-bat, especially from Pappas.

5. On September 24, 1971, he became the 16th pitcher in major league history (and the 10th in the NL) to strike out the side while throwing the minimum nine pitches. The Philly batters were Greg Luzinski, Don Money, and future Oriole Mike Anderson.

6. Milt collaborated with Wayne Mausser and Larry Names on a memoir entitled Out at Home.

7. His brother Perry was a minor league pitcher in the Yankee organization.

8. Milt hit 20 home runs in his career, including a two-run shot off of Hall-of-Famer Gaylord Perry. He also victimized Perry's brother Jim for a two-run home run.

9. Speaking of Jim Perry, according to Baseball Reference, Pappas' career statistics are most similar to those of Perry, with Don Drysdale, Orel Hershiser, Catfish Hunter, and Bob Welch rounding out the Top Five.

10. His son Steve has his own website, which contains several more interesting facts and photos of Milt, as well as material relating to one of Steve's own passions, the APBA baseball board game.