The Perfect Game: A Perfect Lie

The funny thing about having a blog is that, well, people read it. And, on occasion, they have some sort of interest in your opinion. A friend of mine suggested the other night that I write about the recent string of perfect games that have occurred this year in baseball. To which my response was, "and what exactly does a perfect game entail?" Being admittedly clueless about baseball, I had absolutely no idea what this supposed phenomenon was. After a lot of explanation and a little digging, I had my answer. A perfect game is when a pitcher pitches "27 up, 27 down". Or, in layman's (my) terms, a complete no hitter where not a single player reachers first base. Perfect games are extraordinarily uncommon, or as my friend put it, "the rarest pinnacle in baseball". This phenomenon has only happened 20 times in Major League Baseball history, and 18 times since 1900. However, it's happened twice this season alone. First, by Dallas Braden of the Oakland Athletics, and next by Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Maybe I'm just reasonably jaded by the mass amount of corruption in professional sports, but it's somewhat difficult for me to get excited about the two perfect games pitched in one still-beginning season. Why? Because it's extremely likely that at least one, if not both, of these pitchers is having major assistance by some kind of drug. It's no secret that steroid use is rampant amongst MLB players. Add to that the recent allegations of a major increase in pitchers taking mass amounts of Adderall, and it's difficult to believe that these players don't have some kind of superhuman cocktail floating through their blood stream.

Perhaps it's just a combination of skepticism and a somewhat distaste for professional sports in general (I was raised on the NCAA...particularly the SEC...), but here's my final word: Get off the 'roids, boys. I'd imagine it's much more gratifying to pitch a perfect game when you're truly the one doing it. Just ask Lee Richmond.