The Perfect Game

The Oakland Coliseum, home of the Oakland Athletics, is, by all accounts, ugly. Owners of the various sports teams that have resided at the Coliseum, have more colorful words to describe the stadium that was built in 1966 in the hopes of attracting professional sports to the East Bay. Everyone agrees it is falling apart, seemingly a non-fixable mess. Rain overflows the gutters that are supposed to keep walkways dry. The water floods the visiting teams’ locker room, and it takes days to clean up. As the world became wired, workmen put up communication cables will-nilly mostly where ceilings met the walls. At last look, there were a minimum of thirty thick wires held together by gigantic bands to keep their weight from falling on unsuspecting persons.

The Oakland Athletics have played baseball in the Coliseum since 1968 when the Kansas City Athletics moved west to become the Oakland A’s. It has been a storied ride for the A’s: three World Championships in the early 1970s and one World Championship in 1989, the year the San Francisco earthquake interrupted Game 3 at Candlestick Park. The A’s were owned by the Haas Family (of Levi Strauss) who treated players, front office, and the fans with equal respect. Golden years for the A’s and their fans. Then the team was sold in 1995.  One of the stipulations was that the team would not leave Oakland. But as other team owners and their respective cities built newer, smaller, trendier stadiums, these new owners abandoned the team, refusing to invest in players and complaining loudly to Major League Baseball about the state of the Coliseum and how much they disliked Oakland. Former MLB Commissioner, Bart Giamatti, said that baseball is designed to break your heart. The fans, who tend to forget that baseball is a business, had their hearts broken on a regular basis as player after player who became All Star caliber, was traded away.  It was hard to be a season ticket holder with a broken heart. Attendance kept dwindling.

Unlike many of the newer trendier stadiums that have so many distractions, the baseball game is always the star attraction at the Oakland Coliseum--as it should be.

The Faithful, the fans who love the A’s players and think of them as family, who keep coming back year after year, never cease to be awed by the sight of the green of the field as they crest the stairs into the stands. Pre-game, the grass, with no divots, will still have its crisscross look of a just mowed lawn. The freshly raked track, pristine from base to base, will wait for the footfall of the first player to take a base. For the true fan, it’s a Monet painting.

It is in this stadium and this atmosphere that I, and twelve thousand other Faithful, find ourselves on a Sunday, May 9, 2010. It is Mothers’ Day and Breast Cancer Awareness Day. It is a mild afternoon; the fog has not yet burned off the hills. The A’s handed out pink jerseys with the number 10 on the back as we entered the ballpark. It is the top of the ninth inning. Decked out in our pink, like big wads of cotton candy, we are on our feet, holding our breath, clutching our neighbor’s hand. The air is unnaturally quiet for a ballgame.

The starting pitcher, Dallas Braden, a pitcher deemed not good enough to be traded away, is still on the mound.  Twenty-six Tampa Bay players have come to the plate. Twenty-six have been called out. Not a sound can be heard except the wings of pigeons as they land on the net where they’ll wait for the game to end so they can launch themselves into the stands and dine on all the food left behind. Dallas Braden, the kid from Stockton, is not known outside of Oakland except for a recent skirmish with a New York Yankee. No one has taken a base. Gabe Kapler, the 27th player, is batting for the third time. Though no one anywhere in the park would dare to say out loud what’s going on in front of us, we are thinking similar thoughts. We stand there breathing erratically, waiting, hoping, praying. Braden is pitching against the best team in baseball. Gabe Kapler, stretching his arms, taking some practice swings, wearing his away grays, stands between Braden and a perfect game. 

Braden is taking longer between pitches, lifting his cap off, picking up the white rag at his feet, wiping his forehead, wiping his hands, walking once around the mound before putting his cap back on. He waits for Powell, the catcher, to give him his signs. Less than two hours have passed since the first pitch. 

Though none of us have moved, we fans are exhausted.

Braden throws a pitch.

“Ball,” yells the home plate umpire.

Braden throws a second pitch.

“Ball” the ump yells again.

Braden does his dance around the mound again.  Is there a pitcher alive who wouldn’t want to be in Braden’s shoes right now? A chance to make history. Since the beginning of recorded baseball, there have only been eighteen perfect games. No one in the A’s organization has pitched a perfect game since Catfish Hunter threw one May 8, 1968, forty-two years ago, almost to the day.

Braden throws a third pitch.

“Ball,” yells the ump.

Reacting as one person, we gasp. A sickening lurch of the stomach.  This can’t be happening, though no one speaks out loud. I’m holding my neighbor’s hand so tight bones should be crunching. Some of us close our eyes in silent prayer. Many of us laser-beam Braden trying to will him to pitch a strike. So close but how many no-hitters have been broken up on the last out?

Dallas Braden is twenty-seven years old. From the age of four, Braden showed a talent for baseball. His mother worked as a cleaning lady to support them, encouraging his talent and passion for baseball. At times they lived with his maternal grandmother, Peggy, who believed in her talented grandson, the Little League star.

During his Senior year in High School, his mom was diagnosed with melanoma and passed away before his graduation. Braden moved in with his Grandma Peggy who became his number one fan. Braden was not a good student. He was thrown off of his baseball team twice for truancy and bad grades. Before being drafted by the A's in 2004, he played at Texas Tech right in the middle of the Bible Belt. For a kid that grew up on the streets of Stockton, learning never to look other people in the eye, Texas Tech was a cultural shock. If he wanted to make it in Texas, he had to drop his ‘me against the world’ attitude.

Braden started at the bottom in the A’s Minor League system, slowly working his way up from A to AA to AAA. He was called up to the Show in 2007 to replace Rich Harden who’d just gone on the Disabled List. He made his first Major League start at Camden Yards, beating the Baltimore Orioles. That was his only win that season. He was the Opening Day starter for Oakland in 2009. This wasn’t so much a reflection of his brilliance as a pitcher but of the owners’ continued efforts to not invest in their players. Braden was the best they had.

A few weeks before this game, Braden made national news for the first time. He had a spat with another bad boy of baseball: Alex Rodriguez. Braden was pitching against the Yankees (a game he won), when A-Rod strolled across the mound returning to first base after a foul ball in the sixth inning.  Braden stared at him in disbelief.  He yelled at him. A-Rod laughed. At the end of the inning, in the dugout, he kicked GatorAid cups and slammed his glove down. After the game, he ranted to the press. It’s an unwritten rule, he claimed, that when a pitcher is on the mound, players walk around it. “That’s my fucking mound.” 

Rodriguez, one of the best players in baseball, expressed surprise that Braden, a guy with only a handful of wins, should be so upset. They traded barbs in the news, Rodriguez claiming it was funny, Braden feeling insulted. No apology ever came. Eighteen days later, Braden is on his mound and one out away from a perfect game.

We, who are at the ballpark this Sunday, Mother’s Day, can feel our hearts pounding. Each one of us knew that we might see history made. Dallas Braden! No one is speaking. Ken and Vinnie, in the radio booth, aren’t saying a word. Superstition says that if there is the possibility of a perfect game, no one can say the words out loud.

We all know someone like Dallas Braden. Big-hearted. Would move heaven and earth for you if he cares about you. Often on the days that he pitches, he buys out an entire section of seats so a busload of kids from Stockton can see the game. Yet, he too often manages to get in his own way. It isn’t that he doesn’t have discipline, he does. He loves baseball. He practices every day.  It’s something else, a quirk in his character, a short-coming. He could be inches away from the finish line and then do something stupid. Stay up all night before an important game where scouts would be attending. Get drunk before a final exam, fail, and get kicked off the team. We learned much later that he had a terrible hangover at this game.

Here he is, one pop-up, two strikeouts, or one ground ball to second, away from making history.

In the sixth inning, Gabe Kapler had the best at bat so far. Twelve pitches before Braden finally threw a screwball and got him to pop out to third. Gabe Kapler stands at the plate. Three balls, one strike, two outs. He doesn’t seem fooled by any of Braden’s pitches.

Gabe Kapler, Superstition, Braden himself. Would one of them break up the magic? 

Three balls, one strike, two outs.

Once again, Braden catches the ball thrown back from Powell. He leans over and picks up the white rag. He wipes his forehead and his pitching hand. His lips are moving as if talking to someone. Perhaps he is appealing to his mother to intervene on his behalf with a Higher Power. Perhaps this young man from Stockton, realizes there are times when belief in things unknown might be helpful.

He puts his cap back on, dropping the rag to the right of the mound. Once more he looks to Powell for the signs. Once more, he pulls his hands, one gloved, one holding the ball by the seams, up to his face. He takes a deep breath and throws. It seems to us, standing a hundred and fifty feet away from him, that the ball is traveling at about ten miles an hour. Like an animal watching his prey, our eyes are glued to the baseball. We watch Kapler swing his bat. The ball hits the ground and rolls towards Pennington at shortstop. Pennington picks up the ball and makes a perfect throw to Daric Barton at first.

“Out” yells the first base umpire.  

No one hears him.

I’m screaming. We are stomping our feet, having witnessed a God pitch. The A’s bench empties. Barton and Braden run towards each other. With his arms spread wide, looking up at the sky, Barton jumps into Braden’s arms. Seconds later, every news outlet in the country has that photo. The players surround Braden, jumping up and down like ten-year olds. TV cameras rush down onto the field.  Everyone wants a chance at Braden. The Faithful are hugging each other, high fiving, then hugging again. Flags are waving, horns are tooting. The PA system is playing Kool and the Gang/Celebration followed by Three Dog Night/Celebrate. We are dancing in ecstasy. We showed up. The special few who got to witness history. A perfect game. Perfecto. Number 19 in the one hundred twenty five years of recorded baseball.

No one leaves the ballpark. DiamondVision shows the last out and Barton jumping into Braden’s arms over and over. Braden is interviewed.  Grandma Peggy has made it down to the field and is squeezing her love into her grandson. Both are grinning from ear to ear. Days later, we learn that Peggy whispered, “Stick it, A-Rod!” into Braden’s ear.

Someone remembers that it is Breast Cancer Day, a day Braden has hated since his mother died. Did Mom have a hand in this magic moment? Grandma and grandson fold their hands in prayer raising them to the sky, mouthing Thank you.

SARA SOMERS  is the author of ‘Saving Sara A Memoir of Food Addiction’ (2020); has written for Sanctuary magazine, Aging, and the Piedmont Post. She has been the guest on many podcasts to talk about food addiction.  She has also written for several publications in Paris, France where she has lived for the last 10 years. Though she will always be an Oakland A’s fan, she is learning to love rugby and fûtbol. Sara writes a bi-weekly substack: ‘Out My Window’ describing her life in France and looking at America from across the pond.  Sarasomers.substack.com