When Baseball Becomes Art: Pascual Perez

A wrong turn 40 years ago still inspires.

The spark of creativity is often an extraordinary real life event. 

Here at TTSS, by “real life” we mean “baseball” and by “creativity” we mean “baseball art” and “baseball songs.” In today’s dispatch, we’ll delve into an everyday wrong turn that became one such extraordinary event. It turned a rookie pitcher into a folk hero, prompted art to be created, and inspired a catchy AF song three decades later.

On August 19, 1982, Atlanta Braves pitcher Pascual Perez got lost. He had received his Georgia driver’s license that day and, on his way to Fulton County Stadium, accidentally got on I-285 instead of I-85. Understandable, as Perez was called up from AAA just two weeks earlier.

Known as “The Perimeter,” Interstate 285 circles Atlanta, and so did Perez. For 2 1/2 loops. For over 3 hours. For 150 miles. He had to ask for $10 worth of gas because he also forgot his wallet. The attendant recognized him and helped out. He arrived at the stadium during the National Anthem and was fined $100 for missing his scheduled start.

Perez’s wild ride was headline news. Atlanta fans embraced the absurdity. It was just one more comical anecdote after years of baseball so bad you had to laugh. Some numbers: The Milwaukee Braves went to the World Series in 1957 & 1958 and finished 2nd in the NL in 1959 & 1960. Nice run there. But from 1961 through 1981, the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves were abysmal. If you remove their one NL West pennant (1969, bookended by two 5th place finishes), the Braves, on average, finished 19 games out of first place.

After two decades of woeful play, the Braves did the impossible. They won their first 13 games of the 1982 season, a record that still stands, matched only by the 1987 Brewers and the 2023 Rays.

After maintaining a healthy NL West lead through July, those 1982 Braves lost 19 of 21 games, falling out of first place. Luckily, in retrospect, Pascual Perez took the wrong entrance ramp. His replacement, Phil Niekro, pitched the Braves to a win, breaking the losing streak.

This youtube snippet is from the TBS Sports season recap and includes the post-game interview with Perez in front of his locker, decorated by teammates with an Atlanta map.

The next night, Perez used that map, drove directly to the stadium and pitched 9 & 2/3 innings for a win and a standing ovation. The Braves kept winning and took back first place. 

Manager Joe Torre traced the turnaround to one thing. “It was Pascual Perez getting lost. That lightened the mood. That made the players laugh and relax. And that turned us back around. I really believe that.”

“Perimeter” became Perez’s nickname. He wore a warm-up jacket with 285 printed on the back. He also pitched 50 innings with a 3.08 ERA downs the stretch. The Braves clinched the NL West Division title on the last day of the season (thanks to a SF Giants loss) with 89 wins. The post-game locker room celebration is maybe the greatest thing ever ever caught on tape. Thirty seconds in, Ted Turner is pouring champagne down the beak of the San Diego Chicken. 

Beyond Perez, the 1982 Braves oozed personality and talent. Pot-bellied slugger Bob Horner. Al “The Mad Hungarian” Hrabosky. 43-year-old Niekro. Nominative Determinism poster-boy Bob Walk. Clean cut Dale Murphy won the first of his two consecutive MVP Awards. Gene Garber and Steve “Bedrock” Bedrosian combined for 41 saves and a 158 ERA+. Perez, Murphy, catcher Bruce Benedict, and 2B Glenn Hubbard were All-Stars in 1983. Biff fucking Pocoroba.

“America’s Team” was fun and poised to go on a run.

Braves promotional magazine hyping the 1983 team.

“The Braves did not go on a run.”

Narrator

Atlanta got swept in the first round of the 1982 playoffs, finished 2nd in the NL West the next two years, then went back to being a punchline (averaging 96 losses a season) until starting their run of success in 1991.

Pascual Perez himself did not fare much better over the next decade. After two good seasons with the Braves, he was in and out of baseball, eventually being suspended in 1992 after two failed drug tests. His story comes to a tragic end in 2012, when Perez was murdered in a home invasion in his native Dominican Republic at age 55.

“It’s a sad day,” said Braves teammate Dale Murphy. “I’m glad to be able to have some good memories with Pascual. Fun memories. He was part of our best years in the early ’80s, and there was never a dull moment with Pascual.”

We’re not ending our story there. Perez may be gone, but he is far from forgotten.

Braves 1983 stadium program.

On Tuesday, August 16, 1983, with Perez as one of the Braves young stars, the team celebrated the anniversary of his perimeter escapade: Pascual Perez Map Night.

Here, somehow preserved for 40 years, is my very own, original, Pascual Perez Map Night give-away poster. (We’ll get into those signatures in a minute.)

While researching this rare nugget of baseball pop culture, I found (!!) the artist who illustrated Perez, Joe Torre, Interstate 285, the new (at the time) Atlanta airport, and Stone Mountain. 

Scott Harris, artist, illustrator, and motion graphics designer, generously shared his memories about this one weird thing he did 40+ years ago (edited for clarity).

“I moved to Atlanta in 1980 out of graduate school. I got my masters of painting. I got this job at The Weather Channel. They were the first to use computer graphics for broadcasting. I’ve been doing that since its infancy and am still doing it, amazingly enough.

I was a Twins fan because I grew up in Minneapolis. But I did follow the Braves during this time. I enjoyed that team with Bob Horner and Dale Murphy and Pascual Perez and Phil Niekro.

I can’t remember how I got the job. I did some freelance illustration for the Atlanta Journal newspaper for the sports page— Joe Torre, Herschel Walker, people like that. I’m guessing that’s how they found me. 

I was working my full-time job while I was working on the Perez illustration. I cannot remember what I was paid for it, but I know it wasn’t much, maybe $500. But being a big baseball fan and eager for the challenge, I was happy and excited to do it. The Braves never gave me much direction at all, other than: show the road, make it a map.

I don’t think they gave me very much time. I can’t imagine it was more than a week, something like that. I don’t think they thought of these things well in advance. In those days, I was using pen and ink, basically watercolors and colored pencil.

Somebody, probably ten years ago, wrote me and said ‘Is this is Scott Harris who did that Pascual Perez thing?’ And I’m like, ‘Oh God, I hadn’t thought of that in so long!’ He was a great fan and wanted to know if I could get him a poster. I don’t have anything from that job. I don’t think I ever got the original back [from the Braves].

You know it’s funny that some stuff has lasting power, but lasting power for about seven people in the world! Even then, it has more lasting power than most other things I’ve done, given that I’ve worked in commercials and you know how that goes.

Well, as long as it’s baseball. That makes me happy.”

Here’s Braves announcer Skip Carey voicing his approval of Scott’s work.

It’s not just me, Scott, and that one guy from the internet who remember Pascual “Perimeter” Perez and his commemorative Map Night

Steve Wynn does. He wrote an amazing song memorializing Perez’s hallmark faux pas. Here’s “Pascual on the Perimeter” from The Baseball Project’s 2014 album, 3rd. Linda Pitman on vocals and drums.

Let’s look at that framed poster again. At their September 2023 show in LA, The Baseball Project signed my heirloom. From left to right: Steve Wynn, Mike Mills (with the 285 circles), Scott McCaughey, Peter Buck, Linda Pitman, and (top right, printed, not actually signed) Pascual Perez. 

It’s an artifact from 40 years ago, commemorating something nobody remembers, emblazoned by signatures from strangers.

And it is my most prized possession.

You never know what seemingly simple decision will become a memorable life event.

Taking that wrong turn.

Picking up that freelance painting gig. 

Sometimes you get lost.

Sometimes you go in circles.

Sometimes you create something in one week and forty years later that’s what you’re asked about. 

Sometimes you sing about about it.

Sometimes you unwittingly inspire.

But you never know.

Ticket stub from Pascual Perez Map Night.