{"id":255330,"date":"2021-05-21T09:00:13","date_gmt":"2021-05-21T06:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/game-that-left-ron-darling-frank-viola-linked-life-turns-40\/"},"modified":"2021-05-21T09:00:13","modified_gmt":"2021-05-21T06:00:13","slug":"game-that-left-ron-darling-frank-viola-linked-life-turns-40","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/game-that-left-ron-darling-frank-viola-linked-life-turns-40\/","title":{"rendered":"#Game that left Ron Darling, Frank Viola linked life’ turns 40"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Game<\/a> that left Ron Darling, Frank Viola linked life’ turns 40<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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To this day, Tom Kokoska still marvels that Frank Viola\u2019s curveball seemed to drop out of the sky. Don Giordano remembers Ron Darling\u2019s slider starting at a right-handed hitter\u2019s head and somehow landing on the outside corner.<\/p>\n

Both were basically unhittable 40 years ago today, May 21, 1981, two future major league pitchers matching up in the NCAA Tournament northeast regional opener in what some consider the greatest college baseball game of all time at Yale Field in New Haven, Conn.<\/p>\n

There was national powerhouse St. John\u2019s coming off a College World Series<\/a> app<\/a>earance the year before, owners of a 31-2 record. In the opposing dugout was Ivy League foe Yale, which had 12 losses, but did have Darling, a two-time All-American who was also its top hitter.<\/p>\n

Darling didn\u2019t allow a hit over the first 11 innings and finished with 16 strikeouts, a performance he called his finest at any level. Viola tossed 11 shutout innings. The game wasn\u2019t decided until the 12th, when St. John\u2019s second baseman Steve Scafa blooped in the game\u2019s only hit and stole home for the afternoon\u2019s lone run.<\/p>\n

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