Scott's Baseball (and other stuff) Blog

July 27, 2009 -- ARCHIVES -- Send me a comment!

According to baseball-reference.com, there have been 388,474 Major Leage Baseball games played to date. (Some put the figure a couple thousand higher than that, but we'll go conservative here.)

18 of those games have been perfect. Think about that, just in case 27 outs in a row doesn't seem like that big a deal.  It's happened once every 21,582 games.  Factor in 2 starting pitchers per game, and you get one perfect game for every 43,164 starts -- which is over 55 times the number of starts made by the great Nolan Ryan (who threw 7 no-hitters but no perfect games) in his entire career.  

I could go on with the numbers, but you get the idea.  What I'm saying is that what Mark Buehrle did on Thursday was incredibly, exceedingly, rare and special.  I only wish I'd seen it.  I didn't hear about it until after the last out was in the books.

I've been to hundreds of ball games in my life.  Never seen a no-hitter in person, much less a perfect game.  The closest I ever got was on October 6, 2001, when Cubs pitcher Julian Tavarez took a no-no into the 8th before giving up a base hit with one out.  Tavarez was nowhere close to perfect.  He walked 5 and hit 2 batters.  But the atmosphere at Wrigley was electric.  We were primed to see something special and were disappointed but not surprised when it didn't happen.  

Seven years later, I watched on WGN-TV as Carlos Zambrano pitched a no-hitter against the Astros in Milwaukee (a venue change due to Hurricane Ike hitting Houston).  I thought about driving up to Milwaukee to catch that game.  Really.  Nevertheless, I was thrilled to be witnessing it as it happened through the miracle of HDTV. 

I'm sure the excitement I felt during those two games would have been multiplied exponentially if Tavarez had scraped out 5 more outs, or if I'd decided to head up I-94 on that Sunday last September.  And to be there in person for a PG?  I can only imagine.

But for now at least, all I can do is imagine it.  And keep going to games.  Maybe some day. 

*************************************************

July 21, 2009 -- ARCHIVES -- Send me a comment!

OK, so the Website and the Blog have taken a back seat in my life these past few months, for reasons not relevant here. But I'm back, and I've re-committed to keeping the site as up-to-date as I possibly can.

Ron and I planned this year's trip back in April, and we're just about ready to hit the road.  This year's stops are Indianapolis, IN; Columbus, OH; Charleston, WV; Washington, DC; Atlantic City, NJ; Lancaster, PA; Hagerstown, MD; Bristol, VA; and Bowling Green, KY.

Sharp-eyed observers may notice there are some towns on the list that we've been to before.  That's OK.  Columbus and Charleston both have brand new downtown ball yards, which will count as new parks on the tally sheet. As for Indianapolis... well, there are only so many cities you can get to from the Chicago area on a Friday night after work in time for the game.  Victory Field is a terrific ballpark, and we've always found a good time in downtown Indy.  When you've been at this as long as we have, some redundancy is inevitable.

You may also notice that one of our stops, Atlantic City, doesn't even have a team.  In our defense: There was one.  Between deciding on the itinerary and actually making the plans, we learned that the Atlantic City Surf of the independent Can-Am League officially ceased operations in March.  We looked into the possibility of shoe-horning a different stop into that night, but nothing quite worked.  So we just figured, hey, let's go to Atlantic City anyway.  So sue us.

Another unprecedented quirk this year: We'll be staying in 9 different states on 9 different nights!  (Yes, I'm counting DC as a "state" here. Sue me again.)  A certain Johnny Cash song springs to mind.

So, loyal readers (if I have any), let us know if you have any suggestions, must-see attractions, great bars, etc., in any of the above towns.  And stay tuned for further updates!