Pitcher Withee succeeds in pursuit of perfection

One of the rarer occurrences in high school baseball is for a pitcher to toss a perfect game. It is, after all, high school baseball where mistakes are common. Ground balls are booted. Fly balls are dropped. Pitchers can be erratic.

But Saturday in Dover-Foxcroft the stars must have been aligned just right because Foxcroft Academy’s Josh Withee, a junior lefthander, was perfect in a 3-0 win over Caribou.

The thing is his dad, and Ponies coach, Paul Withee wasn’t quite sure what was going on.

He had to leave the dugout a couple of times during the early innings of the game to, among other things, pay the umpires working a softball game.

“I’d come back and there’d be a couple of outs. Then I realized he had a no-hitter going, but I didn’t want to ask anyone if it was a perfect game. I didn’t want to jinx him,” Paul Withee said.

Ah, yes. Baseball rule number one. Make that NUMBER ONE. No one mentions a no-hitter when a no-hitter is being pitched. Any mention of it could place a curse on it. Just ask Josh Withee.

“Last year Jason Weymouth and I were combining for a no-hitter in an [Eastern Maine Class B] preliminary game against Fort Kent and I said something about it to Jason in the bottom of the sixth inning,” Josh Withee explained.

The second batter in the top of the seventh got a base hit.

But Saturday was different. Withee was mowing the Vikings down. He struck out 14 and was in complete control. He used a fastball with good movement and a curveball to keep the Vikings batters off balance. He said he knew something special was going on.

“About the fourth inning it hit me that no one had been on base but I didn’t want to say anything,” Josh Withee said.

Someone almost did.

The pitcher said one of the team’s assistant coaches began to talk about it but was shushed by another assistant coach.

Meanwhile, Paul Withee still wasn’t sure. Worse still, there wasn’t anything he could do about it but watch his son from the dugout.

Josh Withee took the mound for the seventh inning and quickly got the first two batters out.

“I just wanted to get it over when it came to the seventh,” Withee said.

Withee fell behind in the count to the last batter of the game.

“I actually got down 2-0 in the count and I got a little nervous. But I got it back to 2-2,” Josh Withee said.

From the dugout Paul Withee watched as the batter hit a “dribbler” to third.

“It went off the end of [FA third baseman] Ethan Annis’ glove and fell in front of him. He picked it up and threw to first base and the kids started celebrating,” Paul Withee said.

It was only then, Paul Withee said, that he realized his son had pitched a perfect game.

“It’s a special moment both as a father and a coach,” Paul Withee said. “But it was nerve wracking.”

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net