The US Senate was stuck behind a roadblock in the person of Jim Bunning, the Republican senator from Kentucky who who used Senate procedural rules to shut down its business.

Aside from being a politician of eccentric views, and not highly popular among Republicans, Bunning is best known as a skilled major league baseball pitcher of the 1950s and 1960s. He may not have been one of the great pitchers – measured by the standards of Warren Spahn or Bob Gibson, say – but he has the distinction of being one of the few players to ever pitch a perfect game in the majors. (A perfect game being one where no opposing batter reaches first base.)

There are more details of Bunning's baseball career here – including Bunning's appearance in the best book about baseball ever written, Ball Four, by Jim Bouton ...