There are things in life you want to accomplish. They may take an hour, a day, a year, or a lifetime to achieve. Other things you just get lucky. It is the convergence of the planned and the lucky where the greatest memories happen. 

Talking with Jesse one day he asked if I wanted to go to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) in Miami. He had looked at the Pool Play games and tickets were fairly cheap. Absolutely, it was baseball and warm weather. The teams playing in Miami, Pool D, were the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Israel, and Nicaragua. The tickets for the Dominican Republic against Puerto Rico were sold out and the prices on the secondary market were significantly higher than the other games, so not that game. John and Jason were joining us as we settled on two games: Puerto Rico against Israel Monday night and Venezuela against Nicaragua Tuesday afternoon. 

I love Marlins Park, or whatever the corporate name is. The ballpark itself does not get the respect it deserves, partly due to the lackluster results from the Marlins since moving to Little Havana. I did not have a strong rooting interest for Puerto Rico vs. Israel. I was just hoping for a good game. The list of instruments not allowed inside was rather long, but the fans were making plenty of noise outside the ballpark an hour before first pitch. The fans were overwhelmingly Puerto Rican, but Israel had plenty of its own enthusiastic supporters. 

Loud is an understatement. The roof was closed so all the noise was trapped inside. The fans were already in a frenzy and it was not yet game time. After stopping at the team store and concession stands we headed for our seats in Right Field, close to the Bobblehead Museum. You could feel the noise in your chest. Despite not having a long history, the World Baseball Classic is establishing itself as a great sports tradition. National pride combined with baseball makes teams and players play above their abilities. Israel is primarily made up of Jewish players who do not live in Israel. Nonetheless, the Israeli team is helping grow the game. Baseball is alive and well in Puerto Rico, the WBC only serves to send the baseball hungry island into delirium. I am neither Jewish nor Puerto Rican. We came for baseball, what better way to unite than around the greatest game. 

The game went as expected. Puerto Rico jumped out to an early lead and just kept going. Israel had no answer. I literally mean nothing. The 1st and 2nd Innings saw the Israelis go down in order. Puerto Rico already had a 6 to 0 lead. Then it happened again in the 3rd Inning. Then it clicked in my head, one time through the order and Jose De Leon was perfect. Puerto Rico put up three more runs in the 4th Inning to make it 9 to 0. It was at this point that Jesse and I caught each other’s eye the way brothers can. Nothing was said, but our eyes were screaming. IT’S A PERFECT GAME!!! De Leon was on a 65 pitch limit, per WBC rules. Even if he continued mowing down batters he would eventually run out of pitches. The end finally came on batter #17 with two outs in the 6th Inning. Jesse and I continued to sit in silence. De Leon struck out 10 of the 17 Israeli batters he faced. Yacksel Rios came in to finish the inning before handing the game over to Edwin Diaz, who also retired every batter he faced. At this point Jason started asking me why I was so quiet, I refused to answer. He also started to openly root for a run rule, since Puerto Rico only needed one more run to end the game. I told him to shut up. 

Duane Underwood Jr. pitched a perfect 8th Inning. Three outs to go. My stomach was in knots. I understood what was happening and I was too nervous to puke. I could feel my heart beating and my ears had been ringing from the noise since about the 3rd Inning. I was a wreck. 

Jesse had forever held the fact that he was at the Giants game when Matt Cain pitched his Perfect Game in 2012. Felix Hernandez threw the most recent Perfect Game a month after Cain and there has not been a Perfect Game in MLB since. In the long history of the Major Leagues there have been over 235,500 games played and only 23 Perfect Games. Less than one every 10,000 games. Jesse had seen a game that was like finding a needle in a haystack the size of Manhattan and he was seeing it again. 

Martin Maldonado led off the Bottom of the 8th Inning with a Walk. Edwin Diaz of the Astros, not the Mets closer, reached by a Hit By Pitch, forcing the winning run to Second Base. Kike Hernandez then hit the second pitch he saw into Left Center to bring home Maldonado, giving Puerto Rico a 10 to 0 mercy rule victory. Israel never threatened a hit. The Puerto Rican defense played flawlessly, never giving the Israelis a glimmer of hope. There were four three ball counts for Israel. Only one came after the 3rd Inning and all four ended in strikeouts. Everyone can have an off day, but rarely does an entire team shut down. 

The game was over and it was Perfect. Puerto Rico made 24 outs and almost certainly would have gotten the final three if not for the WBC mercy rule. It was nerve racking to watch Puerto Rico put the finishing touches on a blowout. Counting down the outs. Ignoring Jason. Trying not to move or doing anything to jinx the Perfect Game. When the final run scored the ballpark exploded. Yelling, screaming, every instrument blaring, euphoria. We showed up hoping for a good game and became Puerto Rican fans because we were witnessing a Perfect Game. 

After jumping, yelling, and high fiving I needed to make a phone call. The person I wanted to call was Jesse, but he was standing next to me, so I called my wife. A decade earlier Jesse had called me from San Francisco in the middle of the night. I was asleep in New Jersey. He was in California for work and had gone to the Giants game after I suggested he go to that night’s Giants game due to a t-shirt giveaway and go to the Athletics game the next night. That free shirt put Jesse in the ballpark for Matt Cain’s Perfect Game. Immediately after the game he called and woke me up. I answered the phone to him screaming but could not understand anything due to the ear shattering noise behind him. He screamed some more noise at me and hung up. He had done the same thing with John. A few minutes later Jesse texted, “PERFECT GAME!!!!”. I was wide awake now, as I looked up the Giants score and sure enough Matt Cain threw a Perfect Game. That explained the screaming. I was happy for him, but for the last decade he has lorded that over me. Sure 30 games in 30 days was cool, but have you been to a Perfect Game? So now I had been to a Perfect Game, but this was his second, so he will continue to hold this over me. So I called my wife, surrounded by the noise. She answered and I began screaming, “PERFECT GAME!!!! IT WAS A PERFECT GAME!!!!! I SAW A PERFECT GAME!!!!” She never understood a word I said. Miami was deafening. A few minutes later out of concern she texted me, “Are you ok? Is everything ok?” I quickly shot back, “Puerto Rico pitched a PERFECT GAME!!!! I saw a Perfect Game!!!!” “Amazing”, came the response. It was amazing. It was perfect.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would see a No Hitter, much less a Perfect Game. Yes I wanted to draw even with Jesse, but seeing Puerto Rico’s Perfect Game with my brother, John, and Jason made it better. Jesse had been alone in San Francisco, unable to tell anyone out of fear of ruining it. The pure terror of a Perfect Game is exhausting, but I would do it again. What are the odds two brothers can both see two Perfect Games? 

DJ