Peter Frank Falcone (born October 1, 1953) is an American former professional baseball pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, St. Louis Cardinals, New York Mets, and Atlanta Braves.
As a senior at Lafayette High School in Brooklyn, New York (the same high school as Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax), Falcone was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the thirteenth round of the 1972 Major League Baseball draft, but opted to attend Kingsborough Community College instead.
Falcone impressed immediately, going 8–1 with a 1.50 earned run average and 102 strikeouts in 72 innings pitched for the Pioneer League's Great Falls Giants in his first professional season.
Aside from a two-run home run by catcher Vic Correll, Falcone also held the Braves' batters at bay for eight innings.
With the score tied 2–2 in the eighth, Garry Maddox, Derrel Thomas and Bobby Murcer hit consecutive singles to give the Giants a 4–2 lead.
Randy Moffitt pitched the ninth to record the save, and give Falcone the win in his major league debut.
With the Giants seeking to improve its infield defense, Falcone was sent to the St. Louis Cardinals for Gold Glove third baseman Ken Reitz at the Winter Meetings on December 8, 1975.
Following a July 27 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates in which he allowed just two earned runs in seven plus innings of work,[7] Falcone's record stood at 6–11 despite a relatively mild 3.95 ERA.
He was in line to pick up his first Mets win on June 2; a Richie Hebner solo home run in the third gave him an early 5–0 lead against Phil Niekro and the Atlanta Braves.
Meanwhile, Mets shortstop Frank Taveras had sought and received time out from third base umpire Doug Harvey.
Given new life, Leonard slapped a single to center, however, the play was ruled dead for a second time, as New York first baseman Ed Kranepool was not yet in position when the pitch was delivered.
[14] On May 1, 1980, Falcone tied a Major League record by striking out the first six batters of the game versus the Philadelphia Phillies.
Injuries to Randy Jones and Tom Hausman forced manager Joe Torre to add Falcone back to the starting rotation in the second half of the season.
The biggest of those eight wins was a complete game against the Houston Astros on September 1 to snap a fifteen-game losing streak, the longest in the majors that season.
[citation needed] Whereas the Mets were perennially poor during Falcone's four-year tenure in New York, the Braves contended in the National League West throughout the 1983 season.
His August 28 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates improved his record to 9–3, and kept the Braves in first place by half a game over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
[21] After two appearances for the triple A Albuquerque Dukes in which he faced thirteen batters and recorded just four outs, he was demoted to the double A San Antonio Missions.
After failing to make it back into the major leagues, Falcone decided to try his luck with the Orlando Juice of the Senior Professional Baseball Association for the rest of the year.
He had the best ERA during the regular season (1.19) and led his team to the championship series, but lost a dramatic game seven against another former MLB pitcher, Bob Galasso.