24 PERFECT MEN

Cy Young

by Richard Edfeldt

The Bible says that nobody’s perfect (Romans 3:23) but I know of twenty-four men that have been perfect … well, at least for the period of one baseball game.

According to major league baseball records there have been only twenty-three men who have pitched a perfect baseball game in the entire 130+ years in the sport of baseball. That means that no player on the opposing team got a hit or even reached base on the pitcher during the entire nine inning game. In other words, he faced the minimum number of players that you can in a nine inning game – 27 – and they all either struck out, flied out, or grounded out – and he receives credit for the victory.  To give a little perspective on this accomplishment – there have been more men who have circled the moon than have pitched a perfect game!

Now, two of the perfect games were pitched in the 1880 and oddly enough, they were played within five days of each other.  They were pitched by John Lee Richmond of the Worcester Ruby Legs, who pitched a 1-0 victory over the Cleveland Blues and Monte Ward, whose Providence Grays beat the Buffalo Bisons 5-0.   There has been some debate as to whether or not these two games should even be included on the list of perfect games pitched because the rules of the game were fundamentally different during this era. For instance, pitches were thrown underhanded (the pitcher's hand could not rise above his belt) and the pitching mound was only 45 feet away from home plate. On top of that, it took eight balls to receive a base on balls, hitters were not awarded first when hit by a pitch, and few fielders used gloves (resulting in many more errors than the modern game). But if you ask me, that different set of rules made a perfect game pitched that much more elusive.

As the game evolved into the 1900’s, there were thirteen perfect games pitched throughout this century of baseball, involving over two hundred thousand games played:

Sandy Koufax

• Cy Young, of the Boston Americans, beat the Philadelphia A’s, 3 to 0 on May 5, 1904. He was one of the most consistent and durable pitchers the game has ever known, winning 511 games. The annual award given to the best pitcher is named in his honor.
• Addie Joss, of the Cleveland Naps, probably pitched the most perfect game by using only 74 pitches (that’s less than nine pitches an inning) to beat the Chicago White Sox, 1 to 0 on October 2, 1908.
• Charlie Robertson, in only his third major league start, led his team, the Chicago White Sox, to a 2 to 0 win over the Detroit Tigers, on April 30, 1922.
• Thirty-four years later, on October 8, 1956, the most famous perfect game was pitched. Don Larsen, of the New York Yankees, beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 2 to 0, in game 5 of the World Series. The Yankees went on to win the series 4 games to 3.
• Jim Bunning, of the Philadelphia Phillies, beat the New York Mets, at Shea Stadium, 6 to 0, on June 21, 1964. Bunning was the first pitcher since Cy Young to win over 100 games or to strike out over 1,000 players in each league.
• Sandy Koufax struck out the most batters in a perfect game, 14, in leading his Los Angeles Dodgers over the Chicago Cubs, 1 to 0, on September 9, 1965.
• Catfish Hunter was the youngest pitcher in the modern era, age 22, to pitch a perfect game on May 8, 1968. His Oakland A’s beat the Minnesota Twins, 4 to 0.
• It took 13 years before the next perfect game was pitched. On May 15, 1981, Len Barker, of the Cleveland Indians, beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 3 to 0. Barker led the majors in strikeouts two straight years but ended with an overall losing record.
• On the last day of the 1984 baseball season, on September 30^th,  Mike Witt, of the California Angels, beat the Texas Rangers, 1 to 0, to win his perfect game.
• Four years later, Tom Browning pitched his Cincinnati Reds to a 1 – 0 home field victory at Riverfront Stadium over the Los Angeles Dodgers, on September 16, 1988. He also missed becoming the first Major League pitcher to hurl two perfect games, taking another bid into the ninth on July 4, 1989.
• Dennis Martinez was the first Latin American to pitch a perfect game, leading his visiting Montreal Expos to a 2 to 0 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium on July 28, 1991. He is the all time wins leader among Latin Americans with 245.
• Three years later, to the day, on July 28, 1994, Kenny Rogers pitched his perfect game, winning 4 to 0, his Texas Rangers beating the California Angels. 
• David Wells, of the New York Yankees, used the most pitches, 120, to beat the Minnesota Twins, 4 to 0 in his home field, Yankee Stadium on May 17, 1998.
• Little over a year later, David Cone took the longest time, 2 hours and 50 minutes (which includes a 33 minute rain delay) to help the New York Yankees experience their third perfect game victory with zero losses, beating the Montreal Expos, 6 to 0 on July 18, 1999.

And in this new millennial, we have had 8 perfect pitchers so far:

Roy Halladay

• Randy Johnson became the first to pitch a perfect game in this millennial and century and also the oldest player at age 40 to pitch a perfect game victory for his Arizona Diamondbacks over the Atlanta Braves, 2 to 0, at Turner Field on May 18, 2004.
• Mark Buehrle’s perfect game on July 23, 2009, featured the first grand slam in a perfect game and also a ninth inning wall-climbing catch by DeWayne Wise.
• Dallas Braden’s perfect game was pitched on Mother’s Day 2010 which is especially poignant because he had lost his mother to cancer ten years earlier. It was the first complete game of his short career which concluded a year later with a career record of 26-36 in just five years in the majors.
• 20 days later, on May 29, 2010, Roy Halladay threw his perfect game.  Known as a groundout pitcher, Roy struck out 11 batters, his most for the year. 
• Then just three days after Halladay’s perfect game, the perfect game that will never be counted is the one thrown by Armando Galarraga, of Detroit.  Because of an umpire Jim Joyce’s blown call, which he admitted to afterward viewing the replay, his perfect game will never count.    On a side note, in a touching show of class and forgiveness, Galarraga brought the lineup card of the next day’s game to  Jim Joyce, shaking his hand and accepting Joyce’s tearful apology.
• On April 21, 2012, Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox pitched the third perfect game in White Sox history. The final out of Humber's perfect game came after a full-count check-swing third strike to Brendan Ryan on a ball that catcher A.J. Pierzynski dropped. As Ryan argued with the umpire, Pierzynski threw the ball to first base for the final out.  
• Matt Cain, pitching for the San Francisco Giants, tied Sandy Koufax’s number of strikeouts with 14 in his perfect game on June 13, 2012. The Giants scored 10 runs, making this the largest runaway score in a perfect game.
• On August 23, Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners pitched the third perfect game in 2012.  The oddity of this perfect game was that the Mariners were on the losing end of Humber’s perfect game earlier in the year. Both perfect games were at Seattle’s Safeco Field.

 These 24 men with a perfect game on their résumés’ are a varied lot, ranging from five Hall of Famers (Joss, Koufax, Young, Hunter, Bunning) to seven journeymen ballplayers who had an overall losing record in the major leagues. In fact, Robertson never had a winning season, never was an All-Star, and walked more men (377) than he struck out (310). 

Other than their touch of perfection and their skill in baseball, these men have little in common. They come from different parts of the country and even from different countries. They have a wide range of upbringings – some are city kids and some are country boys. Some have checkered pasts who fought the demons of alcoholism and drugs while others are devout in their religious beliefs. Some have stayed in baseball while others have vowed to stay away. But this one common event in their life dramatically changed their lives forever.

Now that I have thoroughly bored you or confounded you with these bits of baseball trivia concerning these 24 men who, in baseball terms, have been perfect, let me try to share some spiritual insights that I have gained from this knowledge of baseball perfection.

Fact #1

But even more unique than these 24 men throwing perfect games in the short history of the game of baseball is the living of a life without any mistakes – a life of perfection.  In fact, throughout the recorded history of mankind it has happened only once – that being the life of Jesus of Nazareth. As recorded in the Bible, he was born into this world without sin and lived a sinless life. That brings us to …

Fact #2

As for the rest of us, Romans 3:23 describes us this way, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

So nobody’s perfect.  We all fall short of perfection in the eyes of God.  Like these 24 men, we all have different backgrounds and experiences. Some of us have had to battle, fight, scrape, and overcome obstacles all our lives while others have had the proverbial silver spoon in their mouth. As different as we all are, each of us do things each and every day that fails to measures up to God’s standard of perfection, so none of us can join that exclusive club of achieving perfection, even for the span of time it takes to pitch a perfect game.

Fact #3

Despite failing miserably at being perfect, we all can know and rejoice in the fact that God loves us. In fact, though all of us have sinned and none are perfect, we can find comfort and assurance in understanding the fact that nothing can separate us from God’s love. No matter what we’ve done or how many times we’ve turned our back on God or even thumbed our noses in His face, Romans 8:38-39 tells us that …

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If we can allow ourselves to embrace this fact and be embraced by His love our lives would be filled with extreme joy but, sadly, many people convince themselves that they are unlovable – by God and by others.

Fact #4

Although we may feel defeated and beat up, and we feel inadequate in being loved by God, we need to accept the fact that because God still loves us, He desires and longs for us to walk in victory every day of our lives. In fact God loves us so much, in spite of recognizing we could not be perfect, and because He wants to be in relationship with us so badly that He sent Jesus, who, as 2 Corinthians 5:21 describes him, knew no sin and God made him to be sin and to die a sinner’s death so his sacrifice can make us righteous or perfect in God’s eyes.

The writer of Hebrews puts it this way in chapter 10, verse 10 & 14:

“we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
¹⁴ because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”

So in God’s eyes – WE ARE PERFECT!!!!

So when you hear about the exclusiveness of the “Perfect Game” club in baseball, of those 24 men who were perfect for a span of less than three hours in a game of baseball remember the exclusiveness of the “Becoming Perfect” club and how, through Jesus Christ, you are now included as a member of it.

And because of the love extended to you, through no achievement of your own, I strongly encourage you to extend that love on further to those around you.

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