Seattle Mariners vs Boston Red Sox
April 29, 1986 Box Score

The night of Tuesday, April 29, 1986, did not arrive with great anticipation at Fenway Park. The Boston weather was cool, and local interest was focused elsewhere. Twenty-three-year-old righthander Roger Clemens took the mound before a bundled-up crowd of 13,414 customers sprinkled around the ballpark. There was no reason to think that anything special would happen. "Look at that," one Red Sox official, pointing at the photographers' well on the first base side, remarked in the press box as the game began. "There's only one photographer down there." The lone man with the camera was Jerry Buckley, the team's photographer. Earlier that afternoon the New England Patriots, losers to the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XX in January, had selected SMU running back Reggie Dupard with their first pick in the NFL draft. That same night Larry Bird's Boston Celtics, in the early stages of a march to the NBA title, were facing the Atlanta Hawks at Boston Garden in Game 2 of their second-round playoff series. The Red Sox were such an afterthought that their broadcast was moved to WPLM on the FM dial from its normal spot on WRKO-AM to make way for the Celtics. What did it matter? The light-hitting Seattle Mariners were the opposition and this was the 18th game of a 162-game season. Clemens himself was something of a question mark, coming off right-shoulder surgery after going 16-9 with a 3.88 ERA over his first two major league seasons. But the young flamethrower struck out the first three batters he faced, all swinging, and then fanned two of the three in the second inning. In his fourth start since his surgery, Clemens was establishing early that on this night he would be virtually unhittable.

Source: Sports Illustrated (Leigh Montville, July 3, 2006)