Something weird is happening.
From 1900-2008, there were 15 perfect games in Major League Baseball, about one every seven or eight years. In the last 320 days, there have been four. Before this season, there had never, throughout baseball's modern era, been more than one perfect game thrown in a single year. We just had three in one month.
The perfect game — defined as a game which ends with one team allowing no baserunners — was an especially rare feat in the early 20th century, with only one official perfect game from 1909-1955. Since then, they've become slightly more common, with fans seeing one about every five years, on average. This remains an incredibly rare event, the sort of thing destined to pass into history. When Mark Buehrle blanked the defending American League champions on July 23 of last year, it was the first time in more than five years that a pitcher had thrown a perfect game, and Buehrle's accomplishment was the top story on every sports page in the country. So monumental was this deed that substantial coverage was also given to backup outfielder Dewayne Wise, a ninth-inning defensive replacement who helped secure the victory.
On May 9th of this season, A's left-hander Dallas Braden completed a perfect game, the first time in the modern era that two perfect games had been completed within a year of each other. Shockingly, Philadelphia's Roy Halladay threw his own perfect game less than three weeks later, the first time two pitchers had reached perfection in the same season. Exactly four days after Halladay's accomplishment, the Detroit Tigers' Armando Galarraga hurled a perfect game. Galaragga's accomplishment is unofficial due to an umpiring error acknowledged by all parties, but he did the same thing to opposing batters that Buehrle, Braden, and Halladay did.
This article is not about Galarraga's stolen perfect game. A great deal has already been written on that subject, and I don't have anything to add. What interests me is that the perfect game — which used to be literally a once-in-a-lifetime event — has been almost commonplace over the last year. Buehrle's perfect game was something to celebrate. We were due for a dose of 27 up, 27 down. Braden's game less than a year later was a fluke, Halladay's a coincidence. Galaragga's makes this a trend. Prior to 2010, we'd never had two perfect games in less than a year, and now we've had not just two, but four? Something is happening.
I'll be up front about this: I don't know what. In fact, I have no idea. Some have suggested that diminished offense and dominant pitching performances signal the end of MLB's steroid era. I don't buy that as an explanation, or at least not entirely. Offense has diminished in recent years, and the home run explosion of the late '90s and early 2000s appears to be over. From 1997-2002, the heart of the steroid era, we saw 12 seasons of at least 50 home runs. In the 7½ years since, only three, with none in the last two seasons. But that doesn't explain Buehrle, Braden, Halladay, and Galarraga.
If this was just about the end of the steroid era, perfect games would return to a normal pace: approximately one every five years. This is a swing in the other direction, domination by defense. Besides, it's ludicrous to imagine that batters were the only ones juicing up. With so many players — even middle infielders — swinging for the fences these days, it makes sense for averages to be down, but in the post-Moneyball era, walks are up.
So, I don't know why we've seen so many dominating pitching performances in the last year. I'm confident, though, that it's not a coincidence. Does the perfect game mean as much as it once did? Twenty years from now, will Braden and Halladay's accomplishments be viewed with the same reverence as those of Sandy Koufax and Randy Johnson?
Something else strange, which may or may not be related, is that another extremely rare baseball feat has become more common recently, this one on the offensive side. Last season, a single-season record eight players hit for the cycle, tying the mark set in 1933, when stadiums with huge outfields accommodated more doubles and triples. Think of the rarest feats in baseball: perfect games, natural cycles, unassisted triple plays ... they've all been weirdly common recently. From 1968-92, we went more than 24 years without an unassisted triple play. As of 2009, there's been one for three seasons in a row. Prior to that, there had never been two seasons in a row to feature unassisted triple plays.
That's an awful lot of "first time" and "only time," in every phase of the game: pitching, batting, and fielding. Are great accomplishments being cheapened? Are today's fans simply being spoiled by an incredible streak of rare performances? I don't know what, but something weird is happening. Enjoy it while you can, baseball fans.
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