Perfection

Last night, July 23, Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox became the 18th pitcher in major league baseball history to throw a perfect game. 27 Up, 27 down, for a final score of 2-0 against the Tampa Bay Rays. For those who may be unfamiliar with the term, a perfect game is one in which a pitcher completes all nine innings of a game while not allowing any batters to reach base either by way of a walk or hit. They can’t hit a guy with a pitch to put him on base either, but you get the picture.

Fun thing about perfect games is that one can generally remember where you were when one was thrown, even years after the fact. Last night, while Buehrle pitched his master piece I was catching the lastest Harry Potter film in Union Square (for the record I give it 4 out of 5 stars). 5 years ago, when Randy Johnson, then of the Arizona Diamondbacks, threw his perfect game against the Atlanta Braves I was watching the game on TV (thank you TBS).

The Yankees’ David Cone threw his perfecto 10 years ago this month against the Montreal Expos (todays Washington Nationals). I caught that game by accident while having lunch with my softball team after our own game. We looked up a the TV, saw the Yankee game was on and after a few minutes realized what was happening.  We stayed for the whole thing! 1 year before that, David Wells also tossed a perfect game for the Yanks, this time against the Minnesota Twins.

The Wells game was a Sunday afternoon game. I wanted to go the game, but decided to go to the 9th Avenue food fair in NYC instead. After spending hours sampling various delicacies over 20 blocks, a man noticing my Yankee hat tells me that Wells threw a perfect game. I told him “yeah, right” and didn’t give it another thought. By the time I got to the next block however, everyone was talking about it!

The last perfect game before Wells’ was Kenny Rogers of the Texas Rangers back in 1994. I missed that one. Dennis Martinez of Montreal threw his in 1988. That was before the advent of national cable baseball coverage, so I missed that one too.

The 12 perfect games between 1880 and 1984? OK, I don’t remember those either.  For the record, here’s a complete list of all the pefect games in major league baseball history:

1880 - Lee Richmond (Worchester Ruby Legs over the Cleveland Blues 1-0)
1880 - John Montgomery Ward (Providence Grays over the Buffalo Bisons 5-0)
1904 – Cy Young (Boston Americans over the Philadelphia A’s 3-0)
1908 - Addie Jones (Cleveland Napps over the Chicago White Sox 1-0)
1922 – Charlie Robertson (Chicago White Sox over the Detroit Tigers 2-0)
1956 – Don Larsen (New York Yankees over the Brooklyn Dodgers (2-0)
1964 – Jim Bunning (Philadelphia Phillies over the New York Mets 6-0)
1965 – Sandy Koufax (Los Angeles Dodgers over the Chicago Cubs 1-0)
1968 – Catfish Hunter (Oakland A’s over the Minnesota Twins 4-0)
1981 – Len Barker (Cleveland Indians over the Toronto Blue Jays)
1984 – Mike Witt (California Angels over the Texas Rangers 1-0)
1988 – Tom Browning (Cincinnati Reds over the Los Angeles Dodgers 1-0)
1991 – Dennis Martinez (Montreal Expos over the Los Angeles Dodgers 2-0)
1994 – Kenny Rogers (Texas Rangers over the California Angels 4-0)
1998 – David Wells (New York Yankees over the Minnesota Twins 4-0)
1999 – David Cone (New York Yankees over the Montreal Expos 6-0)
2004 – Randy Johnson (Arizona Diamondbacks over the Atlanta Braves 2-0)
2009 – Mark Buehrle (Chicago White Sox over the Tampa Bay Rays 5-0)