Life is a highway
Players miss games for all sorts of goofy reasons. Happens all the time throughout baseball’s history.
There are some players who miss games because of unique injuries – yes, we are looking at you shortstop Elvis Andrus and relief pitcher Aroldis Chapman, each of whom misses games because of adverse reactions to tattoos.
Wade Boggs misses time during his Hall of Fame career after straining his back while putting on a pair of cowboy boots. Outfielder Chris Brown once misses a game because of a strained eye lid.
And then there is outfielder Moises Alou, who misses an entire season after falling off a treadmill.
Perhaps, though, nothing tops pitcher Pascual Perez’s excuse for missing a game.
Perez’s injury is only to his pride as he misses his scheduled start for the Braves 41 years ago today because he gets lost on his way to the stadium.
That would be Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium, the place the 25-year-old Pascual calls home since making his Braves debut there at the end of July 1982.
No trouble finding the stadium in the three weeks since that first game.
Not so easy on this date in 1982, though, as Perez finds himself literally driving around Interstate 285 encircling that portion of Atlanta, desperately looking for the exit leading to the ballpark.
What should have been a 20-minute drive from his apartment to the ballpark becomes a three-hour ordeal.
Seems Perez mistakes I-285 for I-85, which is the road he really wants. Perez then logs 150 miles or so on I-285 before he finally gets to the ballpark during the “Land of the free, home of the brave” part of the National Anthem.
With Perez AWOL – these are pre-GPS days, folks – Atlanta manager Joe Torre needs someone to start against the Montreal Expos, so a half-hour before the game he turns to 43-year-old Phil Niekro to replace his lost-in-Georgia teammate.
No problem for the knuckleballing Niekro to start on only three days of rest as he holds the Expos to three hits over seven innings.
The Braves beat the Expos 5-4 with Niekro earning his 11th victory of the season and 251st of a Hall of Fame career that lasts through the 1987 season.
As for Perez, he gets another chance right away, starting the next day – after finding the stadium, of course – and working into the 10th inning of a 2-1 victory over the New York Mets.
To honor their wayward teammate, the Braves give Perez a specially-designed team jacket with “I-285” stitched on the back.
Pascual’s absence coincides with the Braves winning 13 of 15 games to help lift themselves to the 1982 National League West title.
“It was Pascual Perez getting lost,” Torre later tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution of the Braves’ late-season resurgence in 1982. “That lightened the mood. That made the players laugh and relax. And that turned us around. I really believe that.”