perfect sells

with the 1975 baseball season on our minds this year thanks to topps heritage, i thought it would be fun to revisit a meaningless yet meaningful game from september of that year. it involves pitcher dave sells, who i think only has this 1974 topps card

to mark his time as an active player in the big leagues, although he pitched in parts of four seasons. he also has a 1990 target dodgers card, as he was the player to be named later in the trade between the angels and dodgers that saw jim brewer head to anaheim. he wasn't anyone i was aware of growing up, as his career ended with the 1975 season, but i took note of him when i first saw his card from the 1974 set because his name, like rick waits or davey lopes, forms a complete sentence.

according to baseball reference, sells appeared in his penultimate big league appearance 49 years ago today. it was a day after his 29th birthday (he turned 78 yesterday - happy birthday!), and he was called in to relieve charlie hough at the start of the bottom of the 9th inning against the astros at the astrodome., replacing willie crawford in the batting order. the game was tied 4-4 as hough had surrendered a solo home run to cesar cedeno in the bottom of the 8th after lee lacy had scored on a wild pitch in the top of the inning to give the dodgers a lead. sells set down the side in order, and the game went into extra innings.

neither team scored in the 10th, with sells striking out dodger nemesis jose cruz en route to another perfect inning. in the 11th, the dodgers make two quick outs before lacy, batting ahead of what was now the pitcher's slot in the order, draws a walk. now, to this point, only doug rau, hough, and sells have pitched, so you would think there would be some arms in the bullpen and the dodgers would send up a pinch hitter, especially with the expanded rosters that they had in september back then. however, manager walter alston has already used a fair number of position players in the game, and with the reds running away with the division, the game didn't really matter too much. whatever the reason, sells is allowed to hit.

the next thing you know, lacy is on second after a wild pitch. the dodgers have steve garvey on deck, and there is no need for a force out with two outs, so the astros continue to pitch to sells. he is a pitcher, after all, and this is his first major league at bat. well, what do you know - sells goes and promptly bangs a hit to left, driving in lacy and the go ahead run. garvey grounds into a force out, and we go to the bottom of the 11th.

now, let me inject myself into this story for a moment and share an experience i had in little league. in the second game of my 12-year old season, i was the starting pitcher for our team and pitched the top of the first inning with no problem. in the bottom of the inning, i hit a home run to center. i was so amped on adrenaline that i couldn't get anybody out in the second inning and had to be replaced by my coach. i wasn't a professional like sells, but i would think that getting your first big league hit to drive in the goahead run in a game in which you are in line for your first win with your new team might have you pumped up a bit. 

whether it was adrenaline or not, sells gave up a home run to the first batter he faced in the 11th - cesar cedeno. after that, he retired the next five astros he faced on groundouts before he walked milt may and gave up back-to-back singles to wilbur howard and ken boswell in the bottom of the 12th resulting in a 5-4 astro victory. not the ending sells was hoping for, but still a pretty memorable game for him. i decided i would create a 2024 topps heritage baseball flashbacks card for him to mark the occasion:

in his next outing, sells did not get an at bat, so he ended his big league career 1 for 1 at the plate with an rbi to boot. the only other dodger i know of off the top of my head with a career 1.000 batting average is roy gleason. it's worth noting (at least for me) that one of sells' teammates who appeared in this game was tom paciorek, whose brother john also hit 1.000 for his career, although he was 3 for 3. baseball is a crazy game.