In his younger years, Bunning was a Major League Baseball pitcher for the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Phillies. He won 224 games - one of which was a perfect game, in 1964 - and struck out 2,855 batters. His political career pre-Doomsday began in 1977 on the city council of the northern Kentucky town of Fort Thomas. Two years later, he was elected to the state Senate as a Republican and elected minority leader by his Republican colleagues, a rare feat at the time for a freshman legislator.