Norman Einstein's
ISSUE 03 (08/09)
"How To Pitch a Perfect Game"
by Cian O'Day
[Cian spends his days in photos and his nights advancing the cause of the Einsteins... well, most nights anyway. If you like the magazine, he would really like it if you joined our mailing list.]
At the top of the ninth inning, Tampa Bay's Gabe Kapler accomplished what no other Ray could all afternoon in Chicago. With a textbook swing, compact until exploding after contact, Kapler connected with Mark Buehrle's pitch on the bat's sweet spot, a sweet crack ringing throughout the stadium. The ball hurtled toward the wall directly between left and center field.
Kapler's hit wasn't a remarkable hit, just a really good one. Good eluded the Rays at the plate all day against Buehrle.
Stride by long stride DeWayne Wise wasn't picking up speed. Like a world-class sprinter out of the blocks, Wise shot from shallow center field toward the wall at full tilt from the first. He jab-stepped sharply, one, two, at the warning track anticipating his leap.
Wise's catch wasn't just a really good catch, it was a remarkable one. Remarkable trumped good, a fitting lesson for a record day.
Wise stretched his glove over the wall, his body colliding the rest of it, then tumbled back into play. As he checked his glove, the ball popped out only to be instantly snared with his bare hand. He spun once on the ground clutching the ball out and up for everyone to see as he leaped to his feet.
July 23rd, 2009. On this day, Mark Buehrle of the White Sox pitches the eighteenth perfect game in the history of Major League Baseball.
Buehrle did it with 116 pitches, third most recorded for a perfect game behind David Wells (120) and Randy Johnson (117). He did it with six strikeouts, tied for second fewest in the fourteen perfect games pitched since the deadball era. He did it without scorching batters, his pitches registering in the mid 80s until the last inning when surging adrenaline sent his fastball just over 90 mph.
Perfect games in recent years have been blistering affairs. Randy Johnson struck out thirteen during his 2004 perfect game. David Cone struck out ten during his 1999 perfect game, tossing 68 strikes on only 88 pitches, an astonishing rate. David Wells fanned seven and caught four looking for eleven total K's in his 1998 perfect game.
Buehrle threw strikes but not at an otherworldly clip. His version of perfection was different.
So much of Buehrle's perfect game turned on unlikely circumstance. DeWayne Wise, maligned by White Sox fans for a plummeting batting average, was a ninth inning defensive replacement. Ramon Castro, recently acquired and starting that day, was catching his first game from Buehrle. Buehrle himself spent most of the afternoon throwing off-speed stuff, his changeup and curve, abandoning almost altogether his trademark cutter fastball.
Buehrle's perfection was remarkable, but it wasn't rare. It didn't look like any other perfect game, and it didn't have the most ideal circumstances, but overall it was typical Buehrle.
Buehrle did it in the same amount of time, two hours and three minutes, as the no-hitter he threw just over two years ago. He controlled the game with his relentless tempo and pace, never shaking Castro off a call, never pausing to step off the mound for a deep breath. He frustrated the Rays by locating his pitches anywhere but over the middle of the plate.
In essence, Buehrle dictated the game like he does more often than not, with timing, with pace, with control.
Credit: Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W80 gone wild... (Flickr)
This one happened to be perfect... but what does that mean?
Perfection is a big concept, a slippery concept. What might be a perfect beauty or a perfect day to me would not be to you. So rarely does the word "perfect" denote an objective perfection.
Perhaps that's precisely what's so satisfying with an event like Buehrle's perfect game. 27 up, 27 down. Within the rules agreed upon, there is no deviation, no room for debate.
But look closer. Pry under the surface of the boxscore. If Buehrle's game is unique when compared to Johnson's or Cone's or Catfish Hunter's or Sandy Koufax's, what's the thread that ties them all together? How are they all different yet all the same?
Ask the question, "How to pitch a perfect game?" The vantage points multiply.
Being no great baseball scholar, I took this question to five baseball minds more sage than mine, asking them what was most important, besides luck, to pitching a perfect game. I ended up with five different perspectives.
The Phenomenal
From Cecilio's Scribe at the Legend of Cecilio Guante I received in answer seven short words: great leather (also known as DeWayne Wise).
There's much truth to that, a perfect game found in the gloves of the fielders behind the pitcher. We can fete the perfect pitcher till we're all drunk on lofty words, but without a determined, unflagging defensive effort there is no 27 up, 27 down.
Baseball gloves as we know them came about around 1920 when the webbing between the thumb and forefinger was introduced. Before that, gloves were essentially flesh-colored padding sufficient enough to swat down a difficult ball in order to field it. In the first 50 years of baseball there were only four recorded perfect games.
The development of the webbed baseball glove over the last 90 years has ushered in more accurate and capable fielding. Subsequently, there has been fourteen perfect games over this time, more than three times than before in less than twice the span of time.
Credit: happily Evan after (Flickr)
More to the point, Buehrle's perfect game doesn't happen without Wise's amazing catch, certainly. But the perfect game also doesn't happen without the more routine stops gloved by shortstop Alexei Ramirez and hurtled to and gloved by first baseman Josh Fields. It is, of course, fundamental.
The Scientific
Kevin Kaduk, better known as 'Duk, runs the popular Yahoo blog Big League Stew. I asked 'Duk what he considered most important to pitching a perfect game.
"Pitch location," 'Duk says. "If you take a look at Buehrle's pitch F/X from that day, he has very few balls locating in the middle of the plate... only two of the 36 ball put into play over the 45 batters retired were hit for line drives."
Not solely the perfect game, 'Duk also references to the streak Buehrle continued after his perfect game, retiring seventeen straight Minnesota Twins before walking Alexi Casilla. His total of 45 consecutive batters retired broke the previous mark of 41.
"If you're putting the balls into a position where your fielders can pick them up or catch them," 'Duck continues, "you're going to have a shot."
Putting the ball into play, forcing hitters to swing uncomfortably at oddly located strikes, is indeed Buehrle's game.
And perhaps that's the deeper point about the importance of defense, or "great leather," that a pitcher like Buehrle sets up his defense to make the play leaning on that old real estate motto "location, location, location."
The Metaphysical
Austin Kelley runs the Modern Spectator, an online journal of sports and culture. Austin knows how potent the intersection between the fantastical of the sports world and the mundane of the real world can be.
So about that perfect game?
"I read that Buehrle forgot to buy the 'energy drink' he normally drinks before every start," Austin says. "That probably had something to do with it."
Ballplayers are often a superstitious lot, imbuing artifacts of the surrounding incidental world with power. Superstitions ape rituals, intending to keep tragedy or the unknown at bay. They reaffirm the ordinary in hopes of avoiding the extraordinary, the rare misfortune.
Of course, not all rarities are misfortunes. A perfect game is certainly a rare occurrence, a fortuitous one, but rare nonetheless.
Buehrle unintentionally broke the ritual. He joked before his start something to the effect of "I guess I'm going to lose today." He seemingly won unintentionally, too, and in spectacular fashion.
The Sociological
When I pose the question to Craig Robinson of Flip Flop Fly Ball, the artist responsible for many stunning baseball infographics among other visual delights, he takes the answer to the other side of the plate.
"I wonder how much it has to do with the hitters going up there with the knowledge that they could be the 'bad guy' in breaking the perfect game," Craig says, "or wanting to be the bad guy and swinging for the fences."
It's an important point. Yes, a pitcher has to be throwing out of his head, whether by heat or by craft. And, yes, the defense behind him must provide flawless fielding.
But, also, the other team must suck something awful on that day. Of the hundreds of thousands of MLB games played, only 18 times have a group of professionals collectively sucked so much such that no one player on the team could muster one measly hit or walk. Hell, no one could even manage being smacked broadside by a pitch.
At least, I think that's what Craig is saying...
The Psychological
Kristen Merrill of Basegirl is an unabashed Red Sox homer. She's also a fine writer with a quick wit. When I posed the question to her, she took the answer to a different level.
"I think it's all related to whether or not a single player is wearing their Superman Underoos that day," Kristen says. "Because you know how in every no-hitter or perfect game, there's one bacon-saving play by a defensive player that totally saves everything? Yeah, I'm pretty sure said player is wearing some super-hero Fruit of the Looms. Or at the very least, ate their Wheaties that morning."
We may never know if it was Buehrle or Wise or even Castro wearing the super-hero undies, but we do know all three proved mentally unbreakable. Buehrle as he worked his way from behind in the count, Castro as he called the perfect selection more by feel than by knowledge, Wise as the game was thrown on his shoulders with the sweet crack of one swing.
There is a certain kind of mentality that we associate with the professional athlete. Sometimes it's called swagger, sometimes confidence, sometimes cheek, sometimes cockiness. Regardless of what you call it, it's the self's ego in overdrive, accounting for factors outside the traditional realm of its control. For a moment, when all factors line up perfectly, an average man can feel like a Superman. He can even act like a Superman, Underoos or no.
Baseball wisdom can take on a Zen-like simplicity. How was Buehrle able to throw a perfect game? He threw strikes. He kept his cool. For a mental game it's surprisingly simple. Or, rather, because it's such a simple game, so much of it is mental.
But, like any game, baseball is played best when it isn't thought out too much. Somewhere around the level of instincts, muscle memory, gut reactions.
Fittingly, the baseball season is constructed so players and teams aren't left much time to dwell, win or lose. When asked by teammates, the media, even his own father if he understood fully what he just accomplished, Buehrle giddily denied he did. Certainly, the thrill of the moment obscured the more weighty contemplations. And certainly Buehrle will have a lifetime to reflect upon his achievement.
Perhaps most importantly, though, perfect wasn't too big for Buehrle, it didn't weigh on his mind as faced one batter after another, pressure mounting with each out, with each inning.
It took a lot of things to pitch this perfect game. An excellent change-up and unflagging control. A great leaping catch and efficient defense. An off day for an opponent's potent defense and plenty of straight-up luck. Mostly, it came down to remarkable being too good for good.
Copyright, all rights reserved.