Perfect Games

Felix Hernandez pitched a perfect game for the Seattle Mariners today.  That is the 23rd perfect game in the history of professional baseball.  Congratulations, King Felix.

It seems to me that along with the complete and total destruction of the Boston Red Sox, a big story this year is that there have been a large number of perfect games.  Actually, I've been thinking that the number of no hitters and perfect games has been on the increase for a while now, but this year felt like more than usual.

I was right.

There have been three perfect games this season:

Phillip Humber of the White Sox against the Mariners on April 21st.
Matt Cain of the Giants against the Astros on June 13th.
Felix Hernandez of the Mariners against the Rays on August 15th.

So the Mariners have been in two perfect games this year.

So that raised the question, has there ever been three perfect games in one year before?

No.  There have been two seasons with two perfect games... sort of.

There were two in 2010, Roy Halladay for the Phillies and Dallas Braden of the A's.  There were also two in 1880.  Yes, I said 1880.  The rules were very different then.  There was no pitchers mound.  The pitcher threw from a flat box that was only 45 feet away.  A base on balls was not four balls, it was eight, and a hit by pitch did not earn you first base.  For all of those reasons it was probably easier to throw a perfect game under those rules.  Unfortunately for the pitcher though, they were only allowed to throw underhand.  So score one for the hitters there.  The two perfect games that year were all of five days apart and both pitchers played for New England teams:

Lee Richmond of the Worcester Ruby Legs against the Cleveland Blues on June 12th.
John Ward of the Providence Grays against the Buffalo Bisons on June 17th.

Yes, the first professional perfect game ever was throw in Worcester, MA.

The only question remaining is, have the Red Sox ever been involved in a perfect game?  Yes... sort of.  The first perfect game of the modern, hit batter/four balls for a walk/pitchers mound 60ft 6inches away from the plate, era was thrown by Cy Young himself.  Yes, he of over 500 wins, a record that will never ever even come close to being broken, threw a perfect game on May 5, 1904 for the Boston Americans over the Philadelphia A's.  They were called the Americans then, but it is the same franchise that we call the Boston Red Sox now.  Yes, the same franchise that is a pathetic, sub-500 team managed by a clown and whose players seemingly running up the back stairs to the owners office to cry like little babies about how Schmucko the Clown is a big bad meanie.

Urgh.




You can learn all sorts of cool things from wikipedia.  Just saying.