Thoughts on the Halladay Perfect Game

I was there. Section 150, Row 5, Seat 5. Ten years from now about 40,000 people will say that. The announced attendance was just above 25,000. The turnstile click was revealed to be just over 19,000. But, I was there.

My seat is above home plate, behind the umpire and just above his shoulder. When the umpire leans forward and the catcher frames for the pitch I have absolutely no view of home plate itself. That does not stop my neighbors from calling balls and strikes, though and more about that later.

The first four seats in rows 4-7 are reserved for scouts. This night there were none. The Milwaukee scout (the Marlins next opponent) were there for the just-completed Atlanta series; The Atlanta scount (the Phillies next opponent) had also just been there. I imagine that it was a holiday weekend kept the others home or busy elsewhere. So, I did not have the benefit of their speed guns, stop watches anc commentary.

Left to my own devices I saw the perfect game through the eyes of a fan, albeit one who has seen a lot of games over the last 60+ years. And, Halladay was masterful. I saw him throw at least five, maybe six pitches in seemingly random order. He threw into a lot of 3-2 counts but each time he reached into his repetoire and found the right pitch.

I was surrounded by Phillies fans, a not-unusual occurence whenever a NL East team plays in Florida. For this purpose, the Los Angeles Dodgers are an east coast team because the diehard Brooklynites still come out. At the end of the 4th inning one guy asked his friends if it was time to think about it. The consensus was no, not yet. At the end of the 6th inning, we were all buzzing. I had to go to the bathroom during the 7th inning, but I was riveted to my seat. From the start of the 8th inning on, we all leaned forward on every pitch. When Mike Lamb hit is ball to straight away center field several stopped breathing until Shane Victoriano caught up to the ball and caught it.

Three disappointments:

1. That night was fireworks night followed by the usual Saturday night concert. About 30 seconds after the game ended the lights went out so the ground crew could start setting up for the concert. I was disappointed that the Phillies were not given more time to celebrate an event that has happened only 20 times in the history of baseball. By the way, team owner Jeff Loria showed us that he is a sportsman -- he ordered the mound dug up and given Halladay.

2. The Marlins got caught up into the moment and made it easier for Halladay than it had to be. It was natural that even Marlins fans started rooting for Halladay, but several Marlins swings were perfunctary at best. Credit goest to Freddi Gonzalez for putting up pinch hitters in the 9th and Lamb, Helms and Paulino were trying.

3. The next day Miami area sports talk radio was detractive. The announcers were talking about three strikeouts that, in their expert opinion, were not strikeouts -- the most generous of the announcers admitted that it was likely Halladay would have pitched a no-hitter; less likely that it was a perfect game. I was disappointed by the sour grapes tone.