He pitched a baseball game that was more than perfect, and yet he lost. Southpaw Harvey Haddix had logged an unspectacular career by the time he took the mound on May 26, 1959. Haddix faced the Milwaukee Braves and set down the first 36 batters in a row, or 12 innings' worth--a perfect game three innings longer than the norm. But his Pittsburgh Pirates couldn't score, either, and Haddix lost in the 13th inning on a controversial play. This book recounts Haddix's one-of-a-kind performance and describes the official decisions that changed the historical record.