A beautiful day for baseball

Yesterday turned out to be quite a remarkable day for baseball.

Early yesterday morning, the Little Man and I walked to our neighborhood Target to pick up some whiffle balls and a bat–his first–so that we could play with them later on that morning. The entire family hauled our way out to Bull Run Park for an event there in support of fallen fire fighters. The Little Man got to see all kinds of fire trucks and we even watched a helicopter take off. He wore a white t-shirt with a fire truck on it and there wasn’t a fire fighter that we passed that didn’t compliment him on his shirt. I got to spend time with the Little Miss, dancing around the field with her as the band played music. The Little Man didn’t seem too interested in baseball, what with everything else going on, but he swung the bat a few times before losing interest. We all had a blast and we all managed to get minor sunburns.

Later that afternoon, I turned on the Yankee game to find the Yanks down 9-0 against Boston in the 4th inning. Given the history of those two teams, I couldn’t imagine the Yankees coming back from that. Of course, that was superseded by the fact that Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox was on the verge of pitching a perfect game. The whole family watched the bottom of the 9th inning and I, at least, could not sit down. When Humber went 3-0 against the first batter of the inning my heart was in my throat. But he managed to come back and strike him out! Next out was a pop fly. Finally, the 27th batter struck out but the ball got away from the catcher. The catcher made the throw to first, recording the final out–and Humber had his perfect game! The 21st in the history of baseball. I was ecstatic. It doesn’t matter what team a pitcher plays for; when they throw a perfect game, it is a momentous occasion for anyone who is a baseball fan. And this was the first one I’d ever seen happen in real time.

Once I turned back to the Yankee game, I saw that the score was now 9-5, thanks to a grand slam. Another 3-run shot made it 9-8. What happened next was an implosion the likes of which I have not seen in a long, long time. The Yankees had 2 consecutive 7-run innings in which they batted around both times scoring a total of 14 runs and they ended up beating the Red Sox 15-9. Just remarkable.

I cannot remember the last time the Yankees were in first place and the Red Sox were in last place but as of this morning, that’s how things stand.

It was, indeed, a beautiful day for baseball.