{"id":636781,"date":"2026-03-22T06:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T06:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/636781\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T06:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T06:52:12","slug":"former-mets-outfielder-10-year-mlb-veteran-larry-stahl-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/636781\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Mets Outfielder, 10-Year MLB Veteran Larry Stahl Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Larry Stahl, an outfielder who played for four teams in a 10-year career in Major League Baseball, died March 17. He was 84.<\/p>\n

Stahl played for the Kansas City A’s (1964-66), New York Mets<\/a> (1967-68), San Diego Padres<\/a> (1969-72) and Cincinnati Reds<\/a> (1973), seeing time at all three outfield positions and first base. He retired with a .232 batting average, 36 home runs, and 163 RBIs in 730 career games.<\/p>\n

More news: Red Sox, Phillies 6-Year Veteran Pitcher Dies<\/a><\/p>\n

A native of Belleville, Illinois, Stahl was most known for thwarting a perfect game in progress when the Padres were playing the Chicago Cubs on Sept. 2, 1972.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Cubs starting pitcher Milt Pappas retired the first 26 Padres hitters in a row before 11,144 fans in attendance at Wrigley Field. Padres manager Don Zimmer sent up Stahl, a left-handed hitter, to pinch hit against the right-handed pitcher.<\/p>\n

More news: Former Cubs Pitcher Dies<\/a><\/p>\n

Stahl worked the count full, then checked his swing to draw a walk on Pappas’ 3-and-2 pitch. The perfect game was over.<\/p>\n

\"Larry<\/p>\n

The next batter, pinch hitter Gerry Jestadt, popped out to second base to end the game, giving Pappas a no-hitter.<\/p>\n

Years later, Pappas blamed not Stahl but the home plate umpire, Bruce Froemming, for ruining his chance at perfection.<\/p>\n

More news: Former World Series Outfielder, 6-Year MLB Veteran, Dies<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThey were strikes or \u2018that close\u2019 to being strikes that he should\u2019ve raised his right hand,\u201d\u00a0Pappas told ESPN\u00a0in 2007. \u201cI had the opportunity for a perfect game, and unfortunately Bruce Froemming did not help me at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stahl’s career ended on a high note with the 99-win Reds in 1973. He made the only postseason appearance of his career with the Reds in that year’s National League Championship Series, playing in four of the five games against the New York Mets.<\/p>\n

More news: Six-time MLB All-Star, World Series Champion, Dies<\/a><\/p>\n

In the ninth inning of Game 5, Stahl collected the Reds’ final hit of the season \u2014 a single \u2014 to set the stage for a bases-loaded rally. But the rally, and the series, ended when Tug McGraw retired Joe Morgan and Dan Driessen to put the Mets in the World Series.<\/p>\n

After retiring as a player, Stahl went to work for the Peabody Coal Company<\/a> before retiring to Illinois.<\/p>\n

For more MLB news, visit Newsweek Sports.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Larry Stahl, an outfielder who played for four teams in a 10-year career in Major League Baseball, died…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[5,50,2328,2304,4,2305,2303,61,63,18],"class_list":{"0":"post-636781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cincinnati-reds","10":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","11":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-mlb-playoffs","14":"tag-mlb-postseason","15":"tag-new-york-mets","16":"tag-oakland-athletics","17":"tag-san-diego-padres"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116271510964392777","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}