Black Sox Faction: the Perfect game.

YAAAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!! Always awesome when something like this goes down, Sox starter Mark Burlhe became the 18th - only eighteen - pitcher to throw a perfect game in the major leagues. Happens on average something like once every eight years. There were many thoughts on this game.

As always, "Where were you?". I was working @ school, but aware the boys were inaaction, I rocked the transistor radio. however, we were in the auditorium, so I couldn't listen to the game. By the time the school program was done, we took th kids to wait for dismissal in the lunchrooms - here I turned on the radio. But the reception sucked - I had to huddle near the window to get anything in, and was joined by some kids. We joined as the Sox made the last out in the bottom of the ninth - and was taken abit back when the Comiskey crowd roared as the Sox made their last out. Then Ed Farmer, St. Rita grad and Sox announcer, said alog the lines of "Sox up 5-0 and were headed to the ninth and you never know what will happen." Instantly my lifetime of fandom triggered into me that someting was up - and, judging by the circumstances and context, it could only mean one thing - a no hitter by Burlhe was going into the final three outs. The call 'no hitter!' went out in the lunchroom - more kids came over.

We listened to the ninth. The reception sucked, and we struggled. Honestly, I was totally calm during Wise's Catch because I had no idea it was such a difficult catch - it just registered as an out. But we celebrated when the final out went down - and then started spreading the news. Glorious. but I didn't know the special natute of the lastest Burlhe nohitter until 20m after it was over. When I got into the car to drive home, I turned on the car radio (nice reception) and only learned that it was a perfect game. Wow!!

I have said this before, but because the game was a day game over by 3.15pm, we were able to celebrate all day. It was kool - the whole talk of the day was on the game, replays of the games hilites, and rbroadcasts of the game on TV and on the radio. it was a holiday, a party, a carnival all day long. "Hey - did you hear about the Sox game?" Phone calls - "Hey - did you hear??" So rare, so kool.

And its always nice when the Sox make the national news of the day - President Obama in the Sox jacket before the All Star game last week, for example. But the most special touch was charli gibsond introduction to the 5.50p ABC National News. After he introduced the main three or four news stories they were going to cover that day, he then said "And there's been a perfect game in baseball today, but .... there's a catch." Kool as hell.

As for calls to instant hall of fame status for #56 is silly @ this stage. Sure, World Series champ, (and a save), the perfect game, no hitter - people even proffer a single home run he hit earlier this year to his rsume. But he's got 139 career wins. Two 19 win seasons - no 20 win season. No Cy Youngs. But, he's only 30, and if he stays in the majors longer that he says he wants to stay, he may rack up enough wins to be seriously considered. He has to get to two hundred career winds before any serious talk can even begin. But, all of these things are really nice if he stays productive.


Much love to Dwayne Wise. Great catch. Great call by Ozzie to take out Carlos Quintein and put in Wise for defensive purposes. Of course, the two will always be linked - the press on perfect games is the 'spectacular defensive effort that typically accompanies them - Wise's catch becomes one of only eighteen such efforts. And the the hush over the crowd the instant the ball left the bat on Wises Catch - both on the endless replayed audio versions (radio and TV) was striking. Boy - endless replayed. All day and nite. Such a festival all day.

Much love to Josh Fields. Hopefully its not, but it mite be his most famous grannie as a Sox player - we're hopinf for many more in the 'black. As the game links Burlhe and Wise, Fields joins in - his was the big hit in this one of eighteen unique games in major league history. Some reporters were asking him about his grannie being overshadowed in a perfect game - I'm knowing that Burlhes game will only ever magnify his hit in Sox and Baseball history. And he was the first baseman, the absolute link to perfection in this game - had he dropped the ball, it woulda been disaster. But he got it done.

Much love to Alexie Ramirez - his was the flawlessly fielded and thrown last out.

Much love to Miguel Castro. He was the catcher, and the last in the line of "perfect game" links-forever for this game.

Fun, festive. Miss the game - here's all the outs.

¡perfect!

football

Last summer I did a lot of reading on the Sox's history - the season was fun, and I naturally startedto explore older seqson of such fun- which led to read on seasons of fun before I even existed. This summer I have been on a soccer history kick - well, really only two books so far. One was in Spring - How soccer exlains the world. Slite 24h read type of books - really didn't learn me anythig @ all, but it was candynice. Inspired me to doubletake my siteline back to this fat book - The Ball is Round A Global History of Soccer - when it went across whatever section it was in (or ordered from the computerized system of interlibrary loan - methinks). But it has been a major success - I'm totally immersed in it, taking breaks only when my mind fills up too much. It's a long book - 900p - so it has taken a week so far - but it'll be done soon. It's so good I put my other book - that slog by Erickson on the German Russian War v. 2- on hold @ p. 225 or so - it really ground me down and I decided to give my self a rest. I'll go back to it soon - the next 200p. in erickson will be a REAL SLOG 'till I smell the end of the book and be carried onto the end by the thrill of finishing th book.

But the soccer book. Remember,it's a total survey. 900 p. is long, but when yr talking about the entire history of soccer - well, things are introduced, and y'd like the author the delved deeer - but always there is the need to get along to the next spot in soccer history. More to-do reading, I guess. Already have ordered books from the library to carry on. But the brush of interest its sparked in me ...

Another funny aspect is that the author writes that rarely do y get a global history of modern times w/ the USA playing only a small bit part. 3p on the early 1900's, 3 more again for NASL in the Seventies, and then five pages on 1994, MLS, and 1999. Im experts on that shit (well,not the early 1900's). Fun to rad and educate meself on all this stuff. Do read. Like y will, huh?

Really interesting and what really caught me from the beginnnig was ... well, the beginnings of soccer. Started bigtime in England and Scotland and spread from there. And how it spread - and the 'choices' different nations made to either adapt soccer or somehting else as the national sport was the killer hook. First off was the decision 'footablls' rule. In the beginnings th rules were just being made up - there was soccer, Gaelic Football, Aussie rules football, rugby, American football - each of these sports were linked way back, but in each country the top game evolved differently. And the interesting part id is that in many ways each country that has an alternative "main" football type sport tends to be an ex colony of britain - and in many ways, the choice of that sport was made in opposition to Britain. So, we have football. - well, baseball, is also a huge sport as well America football was the choice made here btween soccer w/ hands or soccer w/out hands. In Ireland, it was Gaelic football - or Gaelic, as they call it - in South Africa Wales, and New Zealand it was rugby,and thn you got Aussie rules. All kool sports. Reading thise early history seemed a lot like when I was doing my heavy reading two years ago on the early days of the Christian church. Beginnings. Beginnings of the early League, Cup, and eventually internqtional soccer very interesting.

And then it spread to the rest of the world. Whereever Britian had economic interest - there grew soccer. Snce Brits were all ove rthe world in the late 1800's, soccer went everywhere. Some countries got it because the Brits working wherever wanted to play - and the locals observed, learned, participated, and it grew from there.

Again, a dynamic of opposites were @ work in determining if soccer became a huge success in a new country - and every country where soccer hit had a different storyline. For example, in some countries the game became to be a symbol of working class pride and was in opposition to another sort the local elites liked better. Some places there was huge ethnic or religoius pride - one thinks of Celtic in Scotland. Other places it was nationalistic - think Barcelona. And etc etc etc... Every picture has a story.

Im nearing the end. To me, to finally come up to modern days - and actually start reading the parts where I lived through - is intoxicating. Rememebr, this is a survey - so I fully know there will not be pages after pages of Chesterfield -v- M'boro in the F.A. Cup Semifinals of 1997

or

the 91st through 93d minute of the 1999 champions league Final.

Shit - the Chicago Fire won't even get a mention - but that's the beast of the book. Secondary reading, as always, needed.

But since I became a 'made soccer man' in the late Seventies, and an 'internationalist' since my first World Cup perused (1982) and 100% totally committetted/everysecond of every game/ dying during World Cup 1986 - Ive follwed a great deal of the modern game. Obviously, in context, the growth of soccer here as been phenominal since when I first started watching. The book is dicided up into periods, although there is alot of overlapping. So, it examines different parts of the world and the growth or progression of the game in each area. Strted in Britqain, but then its spread to Euroe - then, of course, South America - and the rst of the world. But it hopscotches back and forth trying to give a balanced view of its growth. So, around 1974 soccer started to become really capitalised in a global sense of the word. It really showed in the World Cups - and even I can sense that. Here, I cant remember if the 1978 World Cup was onair here - dunno. But I can totally remember the 1982 World Cup going on - the team to follow especially was Northern Ireland that World Cup. but the big marketing change had come between 1974 and 1982 - 1978 being an abberation because it was being held in Argentina, thn totally rightwiing nazi types running everything there. But in 1982 - the golbal phenomanom had reached a new level - and so i could pop in on Moho that smmer, and sureenught, there was Spain taking on whoever, followed by whoever playing whoever..

The next breaking part is 1990 - Im into thats action finally, and familier names and teams and incidents and contexts from around the world has finally arived. Heaven. Or, as close to heaven as I can get outside of that 91st through 93d minute in 1999. To this day the memory of that afternoon ...