I started this post immediately after Mark Buehrle's perfect game, then had to put it aside while life took precedence. In the meantime, I saw an article (which I now predictably cannot find) that went significantly more in-depth than I had planned, but I still think this rough analysis gives even the most out-of-touch-with-baseball folk an idea of the sheer improbability of a perfect game. I'm currently waiting for a database at work to come back online (sigh), so I figure I'll finish this out.

First, we'll break the game down into at-bats for the other team, and assume that each at-bat is an independent event (the outcome of one has no effect on the outcomes of others). We'll also assume, very optimistically, that each batter has a batting average (BA) of .300, and an on-base percentage (OBP) of .400*. Setting aside fielding percentage entirely, the probability of holding 27 consecutive batters hitless is:

(.700)²⁷ = 6.57123624 × 10^-5 ≈ .0066%

And the probability of simply keeping those men off the basepaths, whether by hit, by walk, or by fielding error is:

(.600)²⁷ = 1.02349037 × 10^-6 ≈ .0001%

Again, this is a shamefully rough calculation. Batting averages and on-base percentages vary from player-to-player, pitchers tire over the course of the game, lowering the probability of getting subsequent batters out, and fielders make mistakes. A more accurate analysis would dampen the probability of getting each consecutive batter out based on the number of pitches thrown that inning, as well as pitches thrown that game, the number of outs made by fielders (batters are hitting the ball, just not to the right places), the probability of a walk, and some tiring coefficient, due to normal fatigue experienced when hurling a baseball at around 90 miles-per-hour. We would also want to, for each batter, factor in the probability of a fielding error conditioned on a ball hit to the field. And there are a zillion other things that could influence a given at-bat, so even that analysis would miss something.

I've been reading about Orel Hershiser, who used to say that he'd set out to throw a perfect game. If he gave up a walk, he was throwing a no-hitter. A hit? One-hit shutout. A run? That will be the only run. And so on, and so forth. It's the mentality any professional pitcher should have, and the fact that only eighteen in the history of major league baseball have seen the mentality of the first pitch to the final out is enough justification (though there is no shortage thereof) as to why baseball is the game of failure. Achieving true success—perfection—in baseball is no trivial task, and is a rare, beautiful, and precious thing.

* In 2009 to-date, the league BA is .261 and the league OBP is .332

Every kid in the Midwest ought to grow up with a healthy diet of AM radio; healthy, as in major league baseball and A Prairie Home Companion. Baseball is best served on the radio, and the caliber of commentary by radio broadcasters far surpasses the tripe of the vast majority of television commentators, with the duo of John Miller and Joe Morgan being a rare exception. It's a shame that I cannot pick up 720 AM from my clock-radio in my bedroom, and I hope that moving away from central downtown solves this problem.

Baseball on the radio occupies a significant portion of my childhood memories, but that's a long discussion for another time (George F. Will talks of this a fair bit in Bunts, which I just finished, thoroughly enjoyed, and highly recommend to anyone who's ever seen a baseball). A Prairie Home Companion lays claim to fewer memories, but fond memories nonetheless.

For whatever reason, I associate with the show the cold nights of late October and November, at the dinner table eating my mother's chicken pot pie; and I associate the smack middle of summer, when school seems to have been out for a decade, and won't resume for a few more years at the least, after a day spent outside playing oddly-crafted games with our neighbors. Strange how memories organize themselves.

Of recent note, I was over at my friend—and brilliant math companion—Laura's house not too long ago when she offered to heat up some left over rhubarb pie (which was delicious, I should add). Immediately in my head was the jingle for the sponsor Be-Bop-A-Re-Bop Rhubarb Pie: One little thing can revive a guy, and that is a piece of rhubarb pie / Serve it up, nice and hot / Maybe things aren't as bad as you thought. Momma's little baby loves rhubarb rhubarb, Be-Bop-A-Re-Bop Rhubarb Pie. And every mention of Ketchup (or Catsup) reminds me of advertisements for "Catchup". These little side notes in my brain, and the appreciation thereof by people who remember listening to the show—and perhaps still listen—never fail to brighten my day.

Though I haven't listened to the whole show in years, the News From Lake Wobegon, my favorite segment, is available in podcast form, and so I've taken to listening to one every once in a while. Most recently, I heard the June 6th edition (iTunes Store link—it's free, download it) while at work, and the in the last few minutes, I found that I had stopped working to focus all of my attention on Garrison Keillor's words. They're always well-crafted, and always worth a good listen; those last few minutes, though (from 13:48 onward), had me, and I transcribed below the last 1:18, talking of recent high-school graduates looking to escape the monotony of Lake Wobegon for cities of strangers, like Los Angeles.

We wish them well on these summer nights in Lake Wobegon. The honeysuckles smell but all through town; the lilacs, the green grass, the sound of water sprinklers in the evening. We wish them all well, walking around town: young people, young lovers, holding hands, grabbing onto each other—they just have to touch each other, all the time. Email does not work for this; a chat box does not work—Facebook does not work, they want to hold onto each other. They want to…bury my face in your neck, and smell your hair, and hold your hand to my heart.

It's a treacherous world out there—so treacherous. Cliffs everywhere; danger everywhere. But we brave it—we brave it—if we can be with the one we love; and hang on, hang on, tight.

Driving back from Minneapolis, the sun behind me cast golden hues of a summer's evening on both sides of the highway, illuminating the rolling pastures and farms of Wisconsin's countryside. As the evening wore on and shadows across the highway crept longer, the sky turned first a deep blue, and then a soft lavender canopy with an orange sunset just on the horizon. The air was sweet and thick with those wonderful and indescribable summer scents—and the occasional draft of cow shit: simply a sign that I was returning home. If there ever was a golden day of summer, today was that day.

It was a fitting closing to a fantastic weekend, beginning with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and continuing with a Saturday morning drive to the Twin Cities to visit one of my best friends and meet her roommate, with whom I knew I'd get along as soon as I saw her tattoo: an ampersand on her foot. Typography brings people together. We made a delicious pasta dish, listened to all sorts of music, and had both memorable and hilarious conversations. I gained a much greater appreciation for that city, with its old buildings and neighborhoods, its interesting eateries and shops, and its incredible radio station, The Current.

I wish I could have spent another day there, or perhaps another week. A little over a day will have to suffice, however, and so I can only look forward to the next time I visit. Calvin and Hobbes tend to say it best: "If good things lasted forever, would we appreciate how precious they are?"

In the words of Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh, A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.

Sometimes, though, it feels like a little more than a win. Maybe, sometimes, you get shut-out through six innings, facing an agonizingly slow fastball and a curveball that just…slows a bit more, and spins slowly into the mitt. Maybe you come up to bat down by four in the seventh, only to score a run on a fielder's choice, then load the bases, and have your catcher—0-3 by this point—punish a ball over the scoreboard in left-center for the go-ahead grand slam. And maybe sometimes—sometimes—your ace walks back up to the hill in the bottom of the seventh and puts his weary arm to the task of fanning the side to win the game.

I've been steadily reading through George F. Will's Bunts, a compilation of articles on baseball, and I've had an immensely difficult time placing my bookmark and stepping off the bus for work in the morning. The book is simply too enjoyable—after all, what better way to spend a morning than by reading philosophy on the designated hitter, astro-turf, "stadiums" vs. "ballparks", and the Chicago Cubs' depressingly perpetual gift for losing? Short of playing baseball, or at the very least, sitting at the ballpark watching a game, a bag of sunflower seeds close by, the answer is: not much.