Ron Guidry struck out 18 in 2 hours.

No jerking around by batters or pitchers.

Saturday, June 17, 1978, 8:00PM, Yankee Stadium II
Attendance: 33,162, Time of Game: 2:07
Yankees 4, Angels 0

Pitching	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA	BF	GSc	IR	IS	WPA	aLI	RE24
Ron Guidry, W (11-0)	9	4	0	0	2	18	0	1.45	33	95			0.299	0.72	4.1

This morning I noticed that the YES (Yankees Entertainment & Sports) Network was replaying this "classic" game.  I watched a few Angel batters strike out.  The announcers mentioned the new banner displayed by some fans: "Louisiana Lightning".  They then mentioned that his teammates called Guidry: Gator.

The 27 year old lefty was having his career year.  He would win the Cy Young award.  This was the fourth consecutive start in which Guidry struck out at least 10.  This was the game that inspired fans to stand up when a pitcher had two strikes on a batter in anticipation of the next pitch resulting in a strike out.

What immediately gets your attention is that the batters stay in the box and that Guidry wastes no time.  He had a runner on first base when I tuned in and even with checking the runner Guidry very quickly got the sign from catcher Thurman Munson and simply threw strikes.  One after another, pounding the zone with little care about working corners.  Guidry let his stuff do the talking.

The slow motion junk we have today is a pale imitation.  Even if a pitcher lasted in a game long enough to strike out 18 it would take forever.  And how entertaining would that really be?  Not very.

The old June 15 trading deadline was two days before but during the short time that I watched the replay there no mention of trades.