Voices is an occasional column in which Post-Gazette reporters share what's on their minds.

The cornerstone of journalism requires writers to keep themselves out of the story, something I learned early in 42 years of lugging around a notebook. Columnists get paid to express their opinions; I get paid to keep mine out and let the facts speak.

This time, however, I'm part of the story. On a Tuesday night 50 years ago, far from being fair or impartial, I was rooting my heart out for Harvey Haddix and the Pirates as I listened to the game through my bedroom door. (I'll explain in a minute.)

On May 26, 1959, I was 9 years old and in the fourth grade at Our Lady of Pain Slovak Catholic Elementary School, or something like that. I did homework and had chores like cutting the grass with a sickle, but I played baseball every day I could and I followed the Pirates with a passion.

We lived on a farm that my grandparents bought after they came over from the Old Country and worked their way out of those nightmarish coal mines and coke ovens of Frick and Carnegie. The river that ran through it was so orange from acid mine drainage that it was called Sulphur Creek.

I never take it for granted that I earn a living writing stories while my grandparents could barely read or write English. Their nine children lived by the land and became Americanized through baseball. My father and his brothers learned to play. My Aunt Peggy, who lived with us, listened to games every night while she clipped newspaper coupons or cracked walnuts with a hammer. She'd scold the radio: "Come on, Prince, just call the game and quit jabbering."

Pirate games were such a staple that announcers Bob Prince and Jim Woods -- The Gunner and The Possum -- were part of family picnics and Sunday afternoon penny-ante poker games.

The night of the Haddix game, my dad, Gus, worked into the evening as he always did. His task was to paint the upstairs hallway, and he listened to the game as he worked. Through the bedroom door, I could hear that "Nitro" Lew Burdette of the Braves was facing Haddix and the Pirates at Milwaukee's County Stadium.

When he was a rookie with St. Louis, Haddix was tabbed "The Kitten." A bigger and older lefty, Harry Brecheen, was called "The Cat" because of his cat-quick reflexes, and Haddix was considered a miniature version of him, efficient as a predator. Burdette was called "Nitro" after his hometown in West Virginia.

The sharp odor of turpentine from my dad's painting was overwhelming, so a window was open to ventilate the hall. The opening, however, ushered in the high-pitched chorus of countless peepers from the frog pond. I guess we didn't deserve to have perfect quiet.

The drama of a perfect game must build. Lots of games start perfect but are tainted by a walk, a bloop, a bleeder or a frozen rope in a gap. And, well, nobody's perfect.

Haddix was on, we whispered, while Gus was talking back to the radio in an agitated tone -- telling The Gunner to just call the game instead of jabbering on -- as the hallway got new coats of white.

He was perfect through 9 innings and then some. He went one more time through the Milwaukee lineup and was still flawless.

I wasn't a southpaw, but I was a pitcher, and I identified with The Kitten. He was a little guy with a big heart, and I was a runt with big dreams.

Like Haddix, I baled hay. I tossed rocks in the air and hit them with a broomstick. I threw ball after ball against a target on a brick wall and practiced fielding when they bounced back.

So in my mind, the Haddix game is as fresh as the smell of new leather. Word pictures fueled the imagination. A strikeout swinging. A line drive snared. The "hurricane, gale-force wind" blowing in from right field thwarting Pirate hitters. The lightning flashes across the Wisconsin sky.

And then, the magic moment ended like a Greek tragedy. The lightning was an error that spoiled perfection. The thunder was the crack of Joe Adcock's bat moments later. Haddix allowed one hit in 13 innings and lost, 1-0.

I'm not one to live in the past. Nothing's older than yesterday's paper, and today's edition is tomorrow's dog carpet. But the Haddix saga goes back to an innocent time, before the Cuban missile crisis taught school kids to tuck under their desks, before Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray and Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, before Vietnam, before I looked at baseball one day and no longer recognized it.

Among the lessons I learned that day:

• A man can win by losing.

• Perfection is an unachievable human pursuit, but the secret is the pursuit.

• The grace to face heartbreak with dignity is the mark of a gentleman.

• Turpentine stinks but walls need fresh paint now and then.

Was it the greatest game ever pitched? It's a matter of taste, like Monet or Manet, Ginger or Mary Ann, A1 or Worcestershire. That said, a musical group recently recorded a song about Harvey Haddix, not Don Larsen. I rest my case.

So if I smell fresh paint or hear screeching frogs, I'll take a moment to reflect. While May 26 is special personally because it's the birthday of my oldest daughter and her oldest child, that date in 1959 is still being talked about a half-century later. It must've been a perfect evening. It's the Haddix game, but it's my personal memory.