Phil Humber Perfect For A Day

All those women will be coming after you now, Phil. Check your match.com account. Ladies all over America heard the word that you were perfect, so they will be flooding you with proposals. Phil Humber, Mr. Perfect. There are worse curses to be burdened with, however it affects your dating life or your peers’ expectations.

Think of the pressure. Now you have to be perfect all of the time. No forgetting to cut the grass. No missed appointments. Nobody is going to want to hear about it. If you didn’t have 20-20 eyesight before, you’ve got to have laser surgery. Most of us can’t count on being perfect for more than five minutes at a time–and that’s if we don’t move–so you’ve got 99 percent of the world beat already since you were perfect for 2 hours and 17 minutes on the mound for the White Sox Saturday against the Seattle Mariners.

Perfect. More often than not we hear the word applied in sarcastic fashion, a reaction to something that is going wrong. Perfect is an ideal and we all know that ideals are not real, not attainable. But you did it, Phil. You actually performed a feat that is defined as perfect. Us shlubs bow down to you.

This could be, might be, life-alterating. By pitching the 21st perfect game in Major League baseball history you joined one of the most exclusive, small clubs around. Even the ex-Presidents club is larger, dead or alive. (The unassisted triple play club is not). Soak this up, Phil. Milk it, work it, appreciate it. You did a great thing. Enjoy.

By the way, once the clubhouse cleared out, once the reporters left, how was the rest of your day? You were on the road, so you couldn’t go home and just hang in familiar surroundings. No doubt your cell phone blew up and have you checked your email lately? What did you do to celebrate in Seattle? Were you Sleepless in Seattle? Did you ride to the top of the Space Needle, look out at all of the bright lights of the city and yell, “I’m king of the world!?”

How was the rest of the night? Did catcher A.J. Pierzynski take you out for a steak at the Metropolitan Grill? That’s the place to eat in Seattle. It beats noshing at the Pike Street Market and A.J. is the kind of guy who would spring for it. After all, he experienced greatness, perfection, by association.

Perfection is elusive in life and at least as unlikely to attain in sports. Without having intricate knowledge of how certain other below-radar sports are scored, I would say the most common perfection in sports is probably bowling a 300 game, ahead of being scored a perfect 10 for gyrating on the balance beam.

Major League ball has been around since 1876 with the founding of the National League and the first perfect game was thrown in 1880. Your perfect game was the 21st in history, which means it is far less common than lightning striking.

Perfect. This time there was no sarcasm about the word. With luck your perfect performance was followed by a good cigar, a sip of champagne (or depending on your preference, a chocolate cigar and a bottle of Thomas Kemper root beer) and a grin that lights up the room. Drink it all in.

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