Oakland A’s Pitcher Dallas Braden has confessed that he had a hangover when he threw a perfect game in 2010.
Braden recently told the San Francisco Chronicle that he downed a few libations before the May 9, 2010 game — something he says he rarely did on game night.
“There are things you don’t do (before starts),” Braden said. “Partaking in libations or adult beverages, that was something I never did before a day game. The night before Mother’s Day, though, I did. We were getting after it a little bit.
“Until that day, I had never treated a start or the day before a start the way I did that day,” the pitcher added. “It’s not like I was telling myself, ‘Let’s get crushed, and tomorrow will be awesome.’ It was more like, ‘Let’s just forget about tomorrow.'”
The perfect game was definitely the highlight of his career in pro baseball. On that momentous day, he earned himself a spot in the record books as only the 19th pitcher ever to throw a perfect game. But by the following season, injuries and surgeries made sure he would never pitch another game.
Braden finished the 2010 season 11-14 with a 3.50 ERA, and he played his entire career with Oakland. He now works as an ESPN analyst after retiring from MLB in 2014.
The Phoenix, Arizona, native is now the second pitcher to admit that he threw a perfect game with a hangover. Former Yankees pitcher David Wells also admitted that he was under the influence when he entered the record books.
Wells told readers of his 2003 autobiography that he was “half-drunk, with bloodshot eyes, monster breath, and a raging, skull-rattling hangover,” when he pitched his perfect game against the Twins on May 17, 1998.
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