Seattle’s Felix Hernandez retired all 27 batters in yesterday’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays, won by the Mariners 1-0. A perfect game! Although I caught the last few innings of the contest on the radio, I’m not sure whether to count it as my first perfect game.
The game, an afternoon getaway game for the visiting Rays, started at about 12:40 PM. I listened to it off and on while driving out to Treasure Island from Bremerton. The Mariners scored in the third to take a 1 to nothing lead and that’s the way things stood when I got to the island. Felix hadn’t allowed a baserunner to that point although announcers Rick Rizzs and Ken Wilson weren’t making a big deal about his perfect performance so far.
At Treasure Island I started doing other things and forgot about the game. My bad. After dinner I decided to see if the Mariners had hung on for a victory and tuned in KIRO 710 (an all sports station) on the radio. At that point I had no clue who won although Felix can be tough to beat when he has a lead. Instead of sports news, I got the game itself in a rebroadcast that was about to start the 7th inning.
It should have dawned on me that the game was on again because Felix had pitched a no-hitter or a perfect game. It didn’t. Root Sports, the Mariners TV station, frequently shows road games twice in one day (live and delayed) to fill up their TV schedule. I assumed that KIRO 710 was following their lead.
At that point Felix was perfect through 6 innings. I didn’t turn off the radio again. While it was fun and suspenseful to hear him retire the last nine batters, some inner voice told me there was no way one of the Rays hitters was going to spoil his perfect afternoon. His stuff was that good. He was throwing every type of pitch for strikes with many of the deliveries in the low- to mid-nineties.
Following an old baseball superstition, the radio announcers were wordsmithing their account so as not to jinx Felix’s performance. They were broadcasting a perfect game and neither would say “no hitter” or “perfect game.” Instead they would say things like “special performance,” or “chance at baseball history,” or “Felix has retired all 24 batters so far.” Of course when they gave the line score at the end of each half inning, they had to say “no hits, runs, or errors for Tampa Bay.”
So should I get credit for listening to the first perfect game in the 35-year history of the Seattle Mariners (and only the 23rd overall) even if the last few innings were via a rebroadcast? I didn’t know in advance how it would end. Honest. The 21,000+ people who attended the game are probably never going to forget it, and it might be years before they stop reminding their friends that they were there. I know that I’m going to remember it for a long time.
After the game, KIRO’s Shannon Drayer asked a pumped-up Felix if this was his best game ever. Not a bad question but a no brainer (right?) even though he has already won 96 big league games, was the American League Cy Young winner in 2010, and has pitched 3 shutouts this year. At first he said yes, but later, perhaps in the euphoria of the moment, he waffled a bit and said it was one of the best.
Geez. If throwing a perfect game isn’t his best performance ever, how good is this guy?
Mud Bay Blog 
Go Mariners.