June 13th, 2012, A.T. & T. Park.

Jake, my 14 year old son, sings in a local youth choir and they were invited to sing the National Anthem ahead of the San Francisco Giants hosting the Houston Astros, an annual affair that this choir has been involved with for a few years. Being a baseball kook I naturally was thrilled. My little sister was visiting from Boston, a Red Sox season ticket holder, so she joined us, too.



It's a terrible iPhone picture but it's taken from our cheap (but very nice) seats in the upper deck. It was from this vantage point that we witnessed baseball history being made.

After four innings I looked over at the line score and noticed something, which I shared with my sister thus: "The Giants have a bunch of hits, but the other guys not so many", which caused her to look as well and elicited a knowing nod. After the fifth she noted "I don't recall anyone walking, either" which gave me cause to cautiously nod as well. As a rule you do not mention that a no-hitter is under way, unless your team is getting no-hit. It's one of the many baseball superstitions that even people who consider themselves to be free of such silliness, like me, find themselves observing.

Great plays and magical pitching followed and many knowing glances between many a fan, until we were standing as one and the twenty seventh batter hit a grounder to third, which the third baseman handled and delivered with a mighty throw to the first baseman, who caught it with his foot on the base and the umpire called the twenty seventh out of the twenty second perfect game in the history of Major League Baseball, and the Giants very first in the club's 130 year history. Easy to say it was the greatest pitching performance i have ever seen, but not by so much as one might think. I put it ahead of Pedro Martinez' six shutout innings in relief for the Red Sox against the Indians in the 1999 playoffs by enough that I don't question it, which is perhaps as great a feat as the perfect game itself, because Pedro was that great, too.

I love baseball.