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Show THE PERFECT - -ONE The Cleveland Indians' In Rarkpr nitrhpd (hp first perfect game since 1968 and the second no-hitter no-hitter in the major leagues this week Friday, May 15 in stopping the Toronto Blue Jays, 3-0. The 25 year old righthander, who led the American League in strikeouts last season, struck out 11 in gaining the first perfect game in the major since Jim "Catfish" "Cat-fish" Hunter of Oakland defeated Minnesota, 4-0 on May 8, 1968. Using mostly fastballs in recording the second perfect game in Indians' history and the eighth in post-1900 major league regular season history, Barker had only one batter bat-ter come close to getting a hit. That came in the first inning when the leadoff batter, Alfredo Griffin, grounded one up the middle, which Tom Veryzer grabbed after ranging far to his right and barely nipped the speedy Blue Jays' shortstop short-stop at first base. Third baseman, Toby Harrah, also turned in fine defensive defen-sive play on a foul ball when he reached far into the third base stands just beyond the Toronto dugout to catch Willie Up-shaw's Up-shaw's foul pop with one out in the fifth. Barker, whose fastball has been timed at 96 miles per hour, allowed only three fly balls and got stronger as the game went on, as he recorded all of his strikeouts after the third inning. The Indians got Barker all the runs he needed in the first inning against Luis Leal. Rick Manning led off with a single and raced to third when first baseman John Mayberry let Mike Hargrove's one out grounder get by him for an error. Manning scored on Andre Thornton's Thorn-ton's sacrifice fly and Hargrove scored on a single by Ron Hassey. Jorge Orta led off the eighth inning with his second se-cond homer of the season. Barker struck out 11 batters. |