Every year this Harvey Haddix anniversary makes me wonder what the Gods of baseball had in mind when they let this happen. This is the definition of a heartbreak, bad luck, a Shakespeare drama or something that Rod Sterling wrote for a "Twilight Zone" episode.

Can you imagine someone saying they watched a guy throw 12 perfect innings and lose the game in the 13th?

This is what happened on this day in 1959:

“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart.”

“It,” in this famous quote, is baseball. The man who wrote those words was Angelo Bartlett Giamatti, who served as MLB’s seventh commissioner from 1988 until his death in 1989.

If there was ever a single regular season game that embodied Giamatti’s sentiment, it took place on May 26, 1959, when the Pittsburgh Pirates visited the Milwaukee Braves at County Stadium.

The Pirates’ starting pitcher that night was left-hander Harvey Haddix. Little did he know that by the end of this particular contest, his name would be etched in baseball history for all the wrong reasons.

That’s because on this night, Haddix would turn in one of the greatest single-game performances by any pitcher in baseball history, one that would lead many to consider him the unluckiest pitcher -- for one night, anyway -- of all time.

It was the greatest pitching performance ever, but he lost the game. How does that happen? Well, it's baseball.

Harvey Haddix was a pretty good pitcher and the kind of guy who gave the manager a lot of innings as they used to say before "pitch counts." He won 136 games with a 3.63 ERA. These days you can be set for life if you pitch like that. Harvey also got to pitch in the 1960 World Series against the Yankees and won game 5.

He died in 1994 and that game in 1959 will forever live in the minds of those of us who love baseball history and a good heartbreak story.

P.S. Check out my blog for posts, podcasts and videos.

Image: Public Domain