All right, we need to figure out what's going on in Major League Baseball with the perfect games. Another one was thrown last night in San Francisco.
A perfect game, of course, is 27 up, 27 down -- no runs, no hits, no walks, no hit batsmen, no batter reaching on an error or a dropped third strike -- no baserunners at all, for any reason.
There have been 22 of these games pitched in the history of major league baseball, the first one in 1880 by a dude named Lee Richmond of the Worcester Ruby Legs (no, I didn't make that up). Five days later John Montgomery Ward (I didn't make that up either) of the Providence Grays (or that) threw a perfect game against the Buffalo Bisons (ditto).
Those two in 1880 are sometimes overlooked as it is thought that results prior to the "modern era" of baseball (starting in 1900) can skew statistics. So, okay -- that means that between 1904 (Cy Young) and 1968 (Catfish Hunter) there were 7 perfect games thrown in 64 years, but from 1981 (Len Barker) to last night (Matt Cain), there have been 13 perfect games in 31 years, and five of them have been in the last four years.
Wish I knew what was causing that. I'll bet a bunch of pitchers do too.
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