Perfect

Mr. Spy and AJ went to a White Sox game yesterday. It turned out to be THE White Sox game. I don’t think either of them is likely to forget it.

My brother-in-law was taking everyone to the game. I begged off in favor of a day home to work. I like baseball, but I don’t love it the way AJ and Mr. Spy do, and I thought the money would be wasted on me. I’m more attracted to baseball as a metaphor for other things. I love Tony Earley’s Jim the Boy and Don DeLillo’s Underworld. I watch games because the men in my life get so excited about them. Yesterday I needed the time to work. But as it happens, I watched almost the whole game anyway.

I turned on the TV at the top of the second. I didn’t plan on watching much, but I’d promised AJ to look for him on TV, as they were not, as usual, sitting in the nosebleed seats, but right down the first base line. A few minutes later, I saw Josh Fields hit a grand slam. “Wow,” I thought. “I’m so glad that happened while AJ was at the game. He’s going to be really excited.” But really, I had no idea. Mark Buerhle’s perfect game — saved by a spine-tingling, unreal catch by Dewayne Wise over the outfield wall, snagged, bobbled, and saved with a roll. It was as exciting as baseball gets.

A perfect game is a rarity. Mark Buerhle pitched one yesterday and it was only the 18th in baseball history — the second White Sox perfect game (the last one was in 1922). I didn’t quite realize the rarity of it until I heard the announcers getting so excited — in 50 years of baseball, one of them said, I’ve never seen one. AJ put it best, though. This morning, after eating his breakfast in front of Sports Center surrounded by copies of the sports sections of the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune, he went upstairs, tore a page from his notebook and wrote:

not very many get to see your favorite pitcher pitch a PERFECT GAME as well as see it in person!!!!

Roster of perfect game

56 P mark Buehrle [he retrieved his Buehrle jersey, which he'd worn yesterday, from the hamper to check the spelling of his name]
27 C Ramon Castro
7 1B Josh Fields
5 2B Jayson Nix
15 3B Gordon Beckham
10 SS Alexei Ramirez
20 LF Carlos Quentin
22 CF Scott Podsednik 1st; Dewayne Wise (Wise made a wall climber! Saved the perfect game!)
23 RF Jermaine Dye

It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, everyone said afterwards. Buerhle, they meant. He was standing there in front of the mikes covered in cream pie. Over the rest of the evening, as we listened to the radio, more and more details come out. That Wise had hit the wall so hard, that he didn’t realize the ball was in his glove until he was coming down and made a quick save. That the Rays all stood in front of the dugout and applauded Buerhle — one announcer said he couldn’t think of another team that would have behaved with such class. That Buerhle took off his cap and almost bowed to them. That the Sox were now tied for first with the Tigers, whom they’re playing in today’s double header.

You don’t have to be a baseball fan to appreciate the drama. It was a perfect summer day, a perfect game, one perfect moment that AJ will, I think, remember for the rest of his life.