Advertisement

Truex ran the perfect race; worried about final 200

There’s something brilliant that baseball has that no other sport does: The perfect game. There’s nothing comparable if you think about it. What is a perfect game anyway? It is a game where the pitcher and defense so thoroughly dominate the batters that not one of them reaches first base.

In other words: Boring.

Except, it isn’t boring. Not in baseball. No, this is the wonder of the perfect game — it’s thoroughly engrossing. It turns the relative lack of action into something magnificent, something awe-inspiring, something thoroughly wonderful. We watch those last few outs with our hearts in our throats, and we desperately root for inaction. We care about the perfection if we don’t care at all about either team. This is history, man.

What other sport has that? You can’t have a perfect game in football — well, yes, quarterbacks can have perfect passer ratings, though that doesn’t compare, and who really cares about passer ratings? The closest thing I can find to a perfect basketball game belongs to, of all people Brad Miller when he was playing for the Charlotte Hornets in 1999. He made all nine of his field goal attempts, all seven of his free throws, and he did not commit a single foul or turnover. Nobody remembers.

There’s no perfection in hockey — that is a sport that celebrates and luxuriates in imperfection.

Tennis does have something called the “Golden Set” where one player wins every single point in the set … but it’s rare, and it isn’t any fun. I would never root for one of those. A birdie on every hole in golf might qualify as perfection, but as far I know it’s never happened, and even if it did happen that’s not really “perfect.” I mean, there are no eagles on the card.

There is perfection in gymnastics and diving and other judged sports, but, you know, these depend on the judges … so that’s a whole other thing.

The idea of perfection in sports seems to be the sole property of Major League Baseball and any reproduction or other use of perfection without the express written consent of baseball is strictly prohibited.

- Joe Posnanski, NBC Sports