My Baseball Memory

Last year, I did not get to go to many baseball games. In fact I only went to two. However, the first game I went to last year ended up producing arguably my greatest baseball spectating moment of all time. Jonathon Sanchez was on the mound for the giants; a relatively average starting pitcher who did not muster much excitement for anyone attending the game that night. Sanchez got off to a good start in the first inning grounding out all three batters. I distinctly remember joking around with my friends with such remarks as, "We'll see how long that lasts, haha." But by the 5th inning our snarky our commentary had been transformed and everyone in the stadium was now mildly impressed, because Sanchez had still maintained the same result for every batter he had faced: He was pitching a perfect game. By inning 7, I was in genuine awe, witnessing the performance of a lifetime by the pitcher nobody knew anything about. And then just like that the dream of witnessing a perfect game was shattered. With 2 outs in the top of the 8th, Sanchez fired a smoking fastball low and outside. Scott Posednik chased after it and made weak contact sending a wobbling fly ball into shallow right field. The outfielder got under it and casually reached out to finish the inning with a routine play, only to have the ball bounce off the cap of his glove. As the ball hit the ground, the groans of thousands of fair weather Giants fans echoed throughout the stadium, and Sanchez's magical perfect game was ousted by a routine fly ball gone awry. Sanchez completed a complete game no hitter, no doubt an extrordinary feat, but as I left the stadium I couldn't get out of my mind that I had been one paltry fly ball away from witnessing history.