Opening Day!

We're under way, folks! Today opened the 2011 Major League Baseball Season, and all I can say is "Baseball, I sure have missed you!" Never mind the fact that here in PA is rainy and freezing cold, and the forecast over the next day or two says the highest the temperature around here will reach is 51ºF, it's Baseball Season and all is once again right with the world!

The season begins in earnest for me tomorrow at 1:05PM EST.  That's the scheduled start time for my beloved Phillies' opener against Houston.  The 'Stros are schedule to start our old friend Brett Myers, and I'll be overjoyed if the Phils send him packing early.  Never could stand Myers, even when he was here pitching for The Good Guys.  Between his foul-mouthed tirades against reporters and his penchant for domestic abuse, Myers is one of the most unlikeable players in the game from where I sit. Roy Halladay will be on the mound for Philadelphia, ready to begin his second year as the Phils' #1 starter.  So how will he follow up last year's mind-blowing season, including a Perfect Game and a Post-Season No-Hitter?  I cannot wait!

You'll be seeing several baseball-related posts here this season, but if you really want to follow my day-to-day rantings and ravings about MLB in general and the Phils in specific, follow me on Twitter - that's where most of my baseball talk takes place.  I'm @berutt, and I'll be happy to talk baseball with you.

For now, pass me a beer and a dog.  It's just about game time.

PLAY BALL!

Almost Perfect...Again!

Back on March 30 of this year, as a part of my Countdown to Opening Day series of baseball lists, I discussed one of the rarest, most difficult feats of pitching prowess there is to accomplish in Major League Baseball: to have pitched, during the course of one's career, both a Perfect Game and at least one other No-Hitter.  It is so rare and difficult that it had only been done by six pitchers:  Cy Young, Addie Joss, Jim Bunning, Sandy Koufax, Randy Johnson and Mark Buehrle.

I did not expect that post to become obsolete so quickly, but there is now a need to add a seventh name to that list.  Last night, in the opening game of the National League Divisional Playoff Series, Philadelphia Phillies ace Roy Halladay threw a No-Hitter against the Cincinnati Reds, leading the Phils to a 4-0 victory and a 1 game to 0 lead in the best-of-five series.

On May 30, just two months after I posted that particular piece, Halladay took the mound against the Florida Marlins and retired 27 batters in a row to notch a Perfect Game.  Last night, he not only joined an extremely elite group of pitchers by accomplishing the incredible, he did it not simply within a career but within the same season - something no other pitcher on that short list had done!  He also became only the second pitcher in history to throw a No-Hitter in a post-season game (the other being Don Larsen, who threw a Perfect Game in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series for the New York Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers).

In fact, Halladay came within a hair's breadth of actually throwing a second Perfect Game last night! The only mar on the performance was a fifth-inning walk of Jay Bruce - other than that, Halladay was perfect.

There would have been only one more thing I wish could have been in order to make the game perfect: if only the great Harry Kalas were still with us to have called it.  TBS's announcers are as bland as dry toast, and when they had the chance to speak to Halladay immediately after the game, the interviewer's take on it was, "Well, that was an interesting way to start off a post-season."  Um, how about "historic"? "Astounding"? "Incredible"? Nope, to TBS, it was simply "interesting."  Kalas would have brought out all of the drama and emotion of the moment in a way this broadcast team could never even imagine.

But who am I to complain? I saw history last night, and the Phils are starting off their march back to the World Series with a bang!  Congrats, Roy...and let's go Phillies!

PERFECT!

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Settled in last night to watch the Phillies take on the Marlins in the second of a three-game set, hoping to see them build off of the previous night's victory and climb fully out of the slump they've been in since last weekend. With their new ace on the mound, chances seemed good, even though Roy Halladay has met with some rough waters in previous two outings.

I'll admit I was among those who were not happy that the acquisition of Halladay over the off-season meant that the Phillies would give up the amazingly gifted Cliff Lee. I'll also now stand up and say I was wrong - this did turn out to be a pretty sweet deal. Halladay came into the game at 6-3 with 4 complete games and 2 shutouts already under his belt - a remarkable first two months considering we live in the age of the specialized pitcher, and starters are seldom expected to go more than 6 or 7 innings.

With Marlins' star hurler Josh Johnson on the mound for his team, the game had the makings of a classic pitcher's duel from the words "Play ball!" The early innings did not disappoint. In fact, a pretty stellar performance from Johnson was overlooked in the excitement last night.

You see, Johnson was outstanding, but Halladay was perfect.

I had watched only one no-hitter from start to finish before in my 30+ years of baseball fandom, that being Kevin Millwood's gem against the Giants in 2003. But I had never had the experience of watching every pitch of a perfect game as it happened. Considering this was only 20th perfecto thrown in the history of Major League Baseball, it's not an experience that one has many opportunities for!

After the fifth inning, Phillies' announcer Tom McCarthy mentioned that Halladay had retired the first 15 consecutive batters he had faced. That was the first inkling that a no-hit bid was in the works. By the seventh inning, my Twitter feed, which is usually filled with lively conversation during a Phillies game, had gone as quiet as the Phillies' dugout must have seemed to Halladay. If you aren't aware, there are two very strong superstitions in baseball regarding no-hitters in progress: first, the rest of the team stays as far away from the pitcher in the dugout as possible; second (and most important), no one - NO ONE, not player, not manager, not coach, not announcer, not fan - mentions what is happening. Breaking either tradition risks "jinxing" the game. So, even though we all wanted badly to tweet about what we were watching, nobody dared to post a word.

By the time Halladay took the mound for the ninth inning, even the Marlins' fans stood and applauded, realizing they were watching history unfold. And when pinch-hitter Ronny Paulino grounded out to third baseman Juan Castro to end it, Twitter and Facebook both virtually exploded with celebratory posts. One of the neat things about social media is to be able to share a moment like that with literally hundreds of people all across the world.



Marlins' centerfielder Cameron Maybin was certainly not perfect - his misjudgment of a Chase Utley fly ball in the third resulted in a three-base-error that pushed Wilson Valdez across the plate with the game's lone run.

It was a thing of beauty to watch arguably the best right-handed pitcher in the game right now achieve such a pitching feat. I'm so glad I had the chance to see it!