Steve Nadel
December 23, 2000
What else can you say about this game? Following the great comeback of the day before Tom Seaver was as dominating as he ever was or ever would be.

It sent a message to the Cubs that the Mets weren't going away. Ever though they slipped in August before making their Pantheon run in September, they still had to establish to the Cubs, the world and to themselves that they had the mettle to make a run for the division, pennant and World Series.

Shea was packed and the Mets scored early. After that it was all Tom Seaver. He mowed down Cub after Cub.

Randy Hundley unsuccessful bunt, followed by Jimmy Qualls clean single to left center are burned into my memory.

With all their great pitching the Mets have never had a no-hitter thrown on their behalf, this is still their best-pitched game. This performance was as good or better than most no-hitters. (see Joe Cowley's 8-walk no-hitter in 1986).

slink
September 25, 2002
In the days before cable we were lucky this day when a local Albany station picked up the WOR feed. Little did my friends and I know that we would see the best pitched game of our lives. We were just thrilled to be able to watch a Mets game on TV. We were heartbroken when Qualls got that one out hit in the 9th. So close but still an amazing game.

Joe
May 19, 2003
I was 9 years old and watching this game from the guest house at my grandmother's summer place. It was the first season when baseball really mattered to me and I was a rabid Mets fan. I remember that every pitch Seaver threw after the sixth inning sent the crowd into a frenzy. For me, it was the best baseball game I had ever seen and I think it still is. Seaver deserved a perfect game but it shows that life isn't fair.

Feat Fan
February 12, 2004
My oldest friend David and I were doing our usual roaming the streets of Brooklyn on a hot muggy night. His parents rented the basement apartment to a newly wed couple, we snuck into the backyard to listen to their joyous sounds of sex, lots of it, and I guess we stumbled or giggled but at any rate, we were about to get caught so we took off and landed at my house. We turn on the game as it goes into the ninth and immediately feel the tension without hearing any commentary. Qualls steps in as we are really getting pumped and the little bastard bloops his seeing eye single and we head back out across the street to check in on newlywed Bob!

Barry F.
April 20, 2004
I didn't see it cos I was only a baby. But 25 years to the day, I married my wife. I told her I would never forget our anniversary because of this game, one of the most incredible clutch pitching performances in the history of baseball. I never have.

Ron N.
July 1, 2004
I was at this game with my dad. I was 11. We were going to get in using the Dairy-Lea coupons from the milk cartons. When we got there, the game was sold out. But, my dad had tickets to the Mayor's Trophy game that was rained out on Monday July 7. He was able to exchange them for like the last 2 seats to be found. I remember Cleon Jones HR in the 7th caused the stadium to literally shake and was the loudest sound I had ever heard. The place was rocking.

LenDog
July 5, 2004
My family was at a beach rental in Long Beach Island, NJ during this week.

I was 8 years old and my bedtime coincided with approx. the 7th inning, so I was in bed but listening to the sounds of the game on the TV in the next room.

I can still remember the groan my Dad let out when Qualls got the basehit.

Here we are, 35 years later, still waiting for the 1st Mets no-hitter. I was at the Dwight Gooden 1-hitter on 9/8/84 and was in attendance when former NY Met Nolan Ryan threw his 7th.

Gooden got no-no and Cone a perfecto with the Yankees. Arrrgggh. As if being a Met fan wasn't challenging enough.

Lee
March 8, 2006
Despite the fact that Jimmy Qualls ruined what would have been the Mets only no-hitter in history, this was still the best pitched game in Mets history. Long live Tom Seaver.

Ron
June 28, 2006
I was 13 at the time and had been a Mets fan since the days of Choo-Choo Coleman. The tension was unbearable as my whole family watched the game. When Qualls got the hit, it was like air out of a balloon. It was unquestionably the greatest pitching performance I have ever seen and that's saying a lot. Seaver really deserved the no-hitter but it was not to be. I am still a Mets fan.

Alan
November 25, 2007
Jimmy Qualls. Jimmy Qualls. He hit a dying quail to short left center. I will never forget that name, I will never forget that sight. I was 19 years old, the summer after my freshman year, working a summer job in downtown NY. We were all excited, with the Mets on a streak, maybe, just maybe, catching the Cubs and getting into the Series. We were hot with emotion.

I told my mother I was going to the game that night, a sultry summer night, and I'd be home after midnight. I got a general admission ticket behind home plate, the best seats in what was always a terrible place to watch a game (the Polo Grounds; now that was a place!). But I loved it upstairs in Shea.

Ninth inning, Qualls hits this little ball, half pop up, half line drive. I still remember the look of disgust on Seaver's face.

"My imperfect game." That's what Seaver always called it. The imperfect game.

Dave
March 5, 2008
I was at the game with Dad and others. We had gotten in free after collecting the appropriate number of Bordens milk coupons. We were sitting high up in the right field grandstands. It was a great game due to the race with the Cubs and the great game that Seaver pitched. We'll never forget the name Jimmy Qualls though.

We also made it to an earlier game in that Cub series where the Mets came back in the 9th to beat Ferguson Jenkins.

buster kitten
October 15, 2008
Of course the story of this game was the near perfecto that Tom pitched, but I was amazed that submariner Ted Abernathy pitched more than six innings in relief. Leo was so desperate for a win he went with Abernathy in a long relief role the likes of which he hadn't done since he was with Washington in the 1950's. Cleon Jones homered off of Abernathy and I remember him on Kiner's Korner after the game saying "I think he's lost a little something off that sinker." I loved that comment for Abernathy had seemed invincible over the last two or three seasons.

Herman
August 25, 2008
Shea was electric!!! Even though I was nine years old, I can still remember the small black and white television on WOR Channel 9. Seaver was so so sharp. My heart sank when Qualls lined that clean single to left-center. After the comeback in yesterday's game, the Cubs looked as they were in last, not first. What made it even sweeter was my neighbor next door was MR YANKEE and he had to eat this!

Eddie
December 19, 2008
I remember this game so well, and the awful feeling when the ball dropped in. Seaver was - still in, in my mind - the greatest.

Announcer Lindsey Nelson: "...and look at Tom Seaver. He's happy, and yet he's sad..."

Alex J
November 18, 2009
Watched it at home in NJ with my parents. Probably the best game of my Mets memory. I remember the crowd when Qualls broke it up. From huge noise to sudden silence... followed by the most amazing ovation ever.

casey
March 21, 2010
Almost a Tom Terrific perfecto. Leslie, Rudi, Leslie's dad and I made the trip to Shea from Huntington Station and saw almost history. I remember Tommie Agee and Cleon Jones running all out to snare the drive off the bat of Jimmy Qualls, but alas to no avail. A long standing ovation for Seaver after the hit.

Angel
January 10, 2014
I recall attending that game as a 15-year-old and having a standing room ticket as Shea was packed to the rafters. My dad was also there attending (me with him) and alongside the 3-homer game by Reggie in the 77 World Series which I attended, this was a great happening to have witnessed in person.

Art
October 30, 2015
I was there with my grandfather, my father and my kid brother, three generations. It was my first live game ever and we were sitting on the rail in the Mezzanine next to two Cubs fans. I was ten years old at the time and was keeping score. I didn't even notice that Seaver was pitching a perfect game until late in the game when the Cubs fan leaned over to me and mentioned it. I am not sure I even knew what a perfect game was. I bragged on this event for many years after. It is kind of a badge of courage for Mets fans to say they were at this one.

Jim
March 19, 2016
As a 15 year old, I remember getting into the game in the bleachers by cutting out 15 coupons from Borden milk cartons. My next-door neighbor's father, who was a Cub fan drove us there.、The crowd noise was unbelievable. I remember Randy Hundley laying down a bunt about 20 feet right in front of home plate, and how exhausted Tom Seaver was after he chased the ball and threw to first base to get the out. Truly an incredible game.

Hot Foot
June 1, 2023
I listened to this game recently, and before the game even starts, Ralph Kiner gives us an early Kinerism when he calls the Cubs center fielder Jim QUAILS, instead of the correct pronunciation. This was Ralph foreshadowing here, not only future Kinerisms, but also the "dying Quail single" (a Bob Murphy quote) in the top of the ninth to break up the perfect game.

I was surprised to hear the game being halted in the second inning because apparently some young fans had climbed on top of the batting eye in deep center, and the PA announcer had to tell them to move. Can you imagine being one of those kids and doing that at THIS GAME? Where are those kids' memories on this site?

Also, a fan came to this game with a trumpet or a trombone and was playing discordant notes at odd times that the radio microphone picked up. It reminded me of the Dodgers 'Sym-phony' at Ebbets Field, but it was only one man.

Seaver's Line for the 'Imperfect Game': 9 IP, 0 BB, 0 ER, 1 H, 11 K, 100 pitches, 72 for strikes, Game Score 96, bringing his record to 14-3 with a 2.46 ERA and the Mets to a 47-34 record, and 3.5 games out of first.

I first saw the highlight of the Qualls hit in the Mets documentary An Amazin' Era in 1986 when I was eight, and I remember being devastated, but the Mets winning the World Series a few minutes later made up for it.

Scoey
June 12, 2023
Hot Foot, I heard the radio broadcast of this game just like you did. My first impression of Ralph Kiner saying "Quails" was that it was a simple misreading of Jimmy Qualls' name. Kiner wasn't known for his strange quotations just yet, so I saw this as nothing more than an innocent mistake.

However, Ralph did give a more distinctive example of his future "Kinerisms" when Tommie Agee came up to bat in the fourth inning. In referring to Agee's run-scoring double in the bottom of the second, Kiner stated that the hit had knocked Cubs' starting pitcher Ken Holtzman "out of the batter's box." Ralph's oddball quotes didn't become apparent until he was worn down at an advanced age and ready for retirement many years later. But hearing this comment at a time when he wasn't quite so old had me thinking that he could've said a few things like this before then. I don't ever remember Kiner making such twisted statements until at least the mid-1980s.

One interesting note about this almost-perfect game by Tom Seaver is that Bud Harrelson did not make an appearance in it. Bud was serving military duty at the time and wasn't at Shea Stadium that night. He returned to the Mets the following weekend.

Evan
April 17, 2024
I was 19, waiting tables that summer out on Long Island. I came into town for the weekend and decided at the last minute to go to the game. I sat down the left field line way up in the upper deck, and still have visuals of this game in my head. After taking the 7 back into Manhattan--I was staying at my dad's place-- I still remember the mixed feelings of ALMOST seeing a perfect game, the excitement of beating the Cubs and maybe getting close enough to them to contend. What an exciting night that was!