Mark Buehrle Pitched a Perfect Game and I Almost Missed It

“Guys! Buehrle’s still got the perfect game!!!” Phil burst into the cooler and yelled.

I was sitting on an empty Miller Genuine Draft keg inside a walk-in cooler at U.S. Cellular Field at 3:00pm on July 23^rd, 2009 drenched in sweat with no idea Mark Buehrle was ten minutes away from completing the 18^th perfect game in Major League Baseball history.

I was just a tired ballpark worker, happy to be off my feet and enjoying an after work cooler beer in refreshing 38° temperatures.

“What?” I said. It was the only word I could mutter.

(You can hear the end of my “Hot Doooogs!!…. Polish!!!!!” call at the :34 second mark)

We’d heard Buehrle had a no-hitter going back in the sixth, but couldn’t pay too much attention to it. It was a hot July day and we got slammed with our 7^th inning last call, which took up three whole innings from the 6^th right on through to the 8^th. It was a doggy July get-away-day game where the sun was shining and the pits were sweating. There was no time to look up at the scoreboard when you’re constantly running around serving hot dogs, nachos, beers, lemonade, ice water, peanuts and popcorns to 250 people. We were beat.

In yellow behind home plate, handing out hot dogs and Polish sausage, dual saddle bag style.

So after we finished our work and shut down service for the day, a couple of us mysteriously and inexplicably found a couple of cold draft beers in the walk-in cooler that would have otherwise wound up down the drain because the beer had been poured and the team was leaving for a road trip that began Detroit immediately after the game. Not wanting such suds to go to waste, we congregated in the cooler for cheers, and a much needed load off.

Then came Phil bringing us news that proceeded to rock our world.

“Let’s go!” Phil yelled, and just ran instead of waiting for us.

We dropped everything we were doing and took off. Didn’t even bother to polish off the beers. Just pitched them in the can and ran.

We hustled through the kitchen out to the tunnel. Phil was standing there waving us down the hall towards home plate. This was the 40 feet wide, 50 feet tall gray-brick tunnel that swept around the entire field underneath the concourse. Dimly lit and constantly curving, it’s where everyone and everything moved undetected around the ballpark.

We could hear a crowd roaring. We hustled towards the home plate tunnel, where we were surprised to see Anthony, the usual security guard, not at his post. He was outside watching the game with the other 28,036 fans.

All of the sudden came a loud roar. The crowd was erupting in cheers while we were still sixty yards of tunnel from the field. We were missing it. We made it a dead sprint.

20 seconds later when we emerged from the tunnel, everyone was still on their feet, and still shouting like their lives depended on it. We got the feeling we’d just missed something big.

I asked a friend of mine Brandon, who’d been out there the whole time, what just happened?

“Dude, that was the greatest catch I HAVE EVER… SEEN!” said Brandon.

He wasn’t kidding. This was a catch so spectacular, so clutch, so memorable that the left center field wall bore the simple words “The Catch” for years following to mark the play. It was that epic.

And I missed it.

There was no time for lament, though. There was one out, and Tampa Bay Rays catcher Michel Hernandez was digging in the batter’s box. What I just missed wouldn’t even matter if Buehrle didn’t get these last two hitters out.

Tension built. It had gotten to the point where cheering was constant. Just this loud noise of clapping and hollering that made any kind of conversation impossible. And the crowd was in tune and alive, as they crescendo’d with each pitch, with the only rest coming after home plate umpire Eric Cooper called, “ball.”

Buehrle gave us one last thrill as he struck out Hernandez on a 3-2 count. After that, Jason Bartlett grounded to short, and every Sox fan collectively held their breath.

Alexei Ramirez has a rifle at shortstop, but he’s about as accurate as a Continental Army musket. He’d go on to finish 3^rd in the league with 20 errors that year. Nobody would have been surprised had he sent that throw over an outstretched Josh Fields at 1^st base, and into the stands.

But Alexei was on target and Buehrle got the perfect game. It was incredible. The fireworks went off and Buehrle was mobbed. In the stands the fans were just as ecstatic. People jumping and shouting and hugging and cheering. I myself couldn’t believe it. In over 300,000 Major League Baseball games in 130 years, this feat had only been achieved 18 times. It was rarer than Haley’s comet as far as I was concerned.

I’ll never forget it.

And I’ll never forget how I almost missed it.

The final out.