I am not a Mariner’s fan. My wife is from Seattle and I have attended a total of two Mariners games in my life and at each of those games I was cheering for the other team. But when Felix Hernandez was about to pitch his perfect game, I became a Mariners fan because I wanted to witness history. My brother-in-law Michael sent me a text in the 6th inning to tell me that Felix was perfect up to that point. I immediately went to MLB.com to listen to the game on the radio. Felix finished out the perfect game by striking out 12 of the 27 batters he faced with a total of 113 pitches. All 12 of his strike outs came on off speed pitches, mostly sliders and curve balls.
Felix had not lost a start in over two months, which is quite a feat playing for a team that is in last place in their division. But even though he had not lost and even though he had come close in the past to a no-hitter, I don’t think anyone could have predicted a perfect game yesterday. Well, except for maybe Felix himself. In his post game interview he said that he realized he was perfect in the third inning and that he kept telling himself over and over again that he had to do it, he had to throw a perfect game. It had been on his mind since April 21 earlier this year while Phillip Humber of the White Sox threw a perfect game against the Mariners in Seattle.
What made yesterday even more exciting for me was that my brother-in-law was at the game. But not only was he in attendance, he was sitting in the “King’s Court,” a cheering section set up specifically for King Felix on the days he starts in which all fans wear yellow shirts with his number 34 on them and hold yellow signs with a giant “K” on them. What a day this must have been for him. He is one of the most devoted fans to any team that I have ever known. Of all the major sports, baseball is the one in which a single game matters the least because there are so many of them. One football game makes a huge impact on the season because there are only 16 NFL games. But there are 162 baseball games and it is hard to argue that every single game is important. But I have no doubt that if he could, Michael would watch all 162 Mariners games. This is quite impressive, but even more impressive considering they are not very good. For him, being in attendance at the first perfect game in Mariners history and sitting in the King’s Court is something that he will be able to tell his kids about. It is one of those events in the life of a sports fan that will be next to impossible to ever top. That is just one reason why a perfect game still matters, but there are so many more.
I believe that there is no other accomplishment by a single player in all of sports that rivals the perfect game. In what other sport can you go 27 for 27? Even when Michael Jordan would score 60 points in a game he still missed some of his shots, he was not “perfect.” Even if a Tom Brady throws 6 touchdowns in a game it is inevitable that he will have a few incompletions mixed in with all his passes. In all other sports, a perfect game does not exist. Perfection is not accomplished in any other sport. A golfer, no matter how great his round was, will still miss a putt. A soccer player will still have a bad pass or a miss shot at goal. I am not saying that these accomplishments by other athletes are not significant and do not matter, I am simply saying that the perfect game in baseball is an accomplishment unlike anything else in sports.
The fact that perfection can be accomplished in baseball is something special because baseball is a sport in which greatness is accomplished through imperfection. If a batter has a game where he goes 2 for 4 from the plate, 50 percent, that is considered a great game. But if a wide receiver only catches 50 percent of the passes thrown his way or a basketball player only makes 50 percent of the shots they take in a game, they have been unsuccessful and would not be celebrated for having accomplished anything. In baseball, if you can get a hit 30 percent of the time you are having a very successful season. Baseball is a game of failures, which is why a perfect game is that much more special.
I can remember the exact moment when I began to fall in love with the perfect game. It was on July 23, 2009. I had been living in South American for two years and had not seen a minute of any American sports. Mark Buehrle threw a perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays. In the top of the 9th inning, only 3 outs away from a perfect game, Gabe Kapler hit a long shot to center field which caused the White Sox centerfielder, Dewayne Wise to chase down the ball. Wise made one of the most spectacular catches I have ever witnessed. He made an over the shoulder catch, ran into the wall and bobbled the ball. Through all that he still hung on to the ball and made the first out of the inning. What made this even more incredible was that Wise has just entered the game to replace Carlos Quentin. He had been sitting in the dugout for the previous 8 innings and was put into the game just in time to make the perfect game saving catch. My only explanation was that it must have been angels. Some foster boy who made a bet with his dad about his team winning the pennant must have prayed for angels to come and they showed up just in time help Wise make that catch. That kid must have seen an angel giving Wise a back rub and waved his arms signaling for the manger to make a switch and put Wise in the game.
When that game was over and I watched the highlights over and over again on Sports Center and online I kept thinking that if only one mistake had occurred that entire game would have been for nothing. If Buehrle had made one mistake or if one member of the team missed a ground ball or if Wise did not track down that fly ball, it would not have been a perfect game. Everything has to be perfect. Even the umpires have to be perfect, just ask Armando Galaraga. For a perfect game to happen, everything must be perfect, and that’s why it’s called a perfect game.
So for everyone who says the perfect game no longer matters, I disagree. It may be happening more frequently than ever before, but in the 143 years of Major League Baseball it still has only happened 23 times. That is still an average of one every 6 years. Baseball goes through fazes. 15 years ago we were in the era of the long ball with Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa. Right now we may be in the era of the No-hitter. We should enjoy it while we can because who knows when this era will end. There was once a span of 13 years from 1968 – 1971 between perfect games. Who’s to say that a drought like that can’t happen again?
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