Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Felix Hernandez Perfect Game!

To answer all of your questions -- no, I wasn't there to call it.  I go up to Seattle tomorrow and begin work on Friday night.  I've now missed two perfect games and one no-hitter this year.  How's that for timing? 

That said, I'm so thrilled for the King and the Mariners organization.  And Dave Sims on TV and Rick Rizzs on the radio both did a spectacular job of calling the final inning.   I'm equally happy for them.

I'll call the next Hernandez perfecto for sure.

23 comments :

  1. You probably shouldn't buy a lottery ticket any time soon.

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  2. I've been puzzled about your work arrangement viz-a-viz the Mariners. How many announcers in baseball don't work (almost) all games? Football too if you know? I'm a huge fan of Eric Nadel, and here in Texas, especially on radio, you always know who is in the booth.

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  3. Ken, I caught the last inning of this on MLB's web site. Dave Sims did a good job with the play by play.

    Speaking of Dave, you should ask him about the time a bird used him for target practice while doing a live remote outside Yankee Stadium...

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  4. gp_guy: The M's have been rotating announcers the last couple of years since Dave Neihaus passed away. Dave Sims and Mike Blowers are about the only guys that are there each game, maybe Rick Rizzs. Though Blowers wasn't there today.

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  5. Tuesday? Can he do a Vander Meer? Or even better?

    Yes, Rick does the radio broadcast of every game.

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  6. It would've been great to hear Ken, but it was still thrilling. Rick did a great job.

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  7. LA Times e-mail headline: Seattle Mariners' Felix Hernandez pitches pefect game

    'pefect' - loved the irony

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  8. I was listening to the game on my office radio, and when it became apparent that Hernandez might achieve a perfect game, I went to a local bar to watch the last couple of innings. What a dominating performance.

    In my blog I suggest that 'Sorcerer of Safeco' might be a more fitting moniker than 'King Felix'. But a rose by any other name . . .

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  9. Baseball, schmaseball-- I'm here because I haven't read anyone mention the fact that "Barney Miller" is about to be aired again! Starting on Sept. 9, AntennaTV will be showing it as part of the regular Sunday night set! (puts hand to ear, Owens-style) Check your local listings!

    I'm SO pleased, because I've been back-reading your blog, and all the mentions and great memories of that show have left me with a severe craving for Barn!

    I can't WAIT for the one with the brownies everyone eats without realizing they're evidence with a "special" ingredient. Except, of course, for Harris, who takes ONE bite, smiles, and says "Oh, they're full of HASH, Barn!"... and continues eating said brownie.

    Cheers, thanks a lot,

    Storm

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  10. King Felix, 26, further embedded himself in Seattle sports history by chucking the Mariners' first-ever perfect game. In the aftermath, if it wasn't before, the strength of the bond between player and club became overwhelmingly clear.
    We'll get to that in a second, but first, his performance deserves a bit of attention. Felix struck out 12 of the 27 batters he faced—only Matt Cain, Sandy Koufax and Randy Johnson have struck out more hitters in a perfect game. In short, it was one of the greatest games ever pitched.

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  11. This is exactly what the city needs,after losing of long time news anchor Kathi Goertzen on Monday and the news of the wild fires in Eastern Washington.

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  12. Phil In Phoenix8/16/2012 6:38 AM

    Ken, maybe this is a Friday Question...

    ...There have been 23 perfect games in the entire history of MLB.

    6 of them (over 25%) have been thrown in the last 3 years. And that doesn't even count Armando Galarraga's blown call perfecto in 2010. Add Randy Johnson" 2004 gem and that's 7 perfect games in the last 8 years.

    The previous 16 occurred in a span of approx. 132 years!

    What do you think is the reason for the recentati rash of perfect games?

    And what's your take on the Tampa Bay Rays (certainly a solid club) being the victim of 3 perfect games in approx. 3 years?

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  13. The photo caption on the Associated Press article says that the Rays won 1-0. Just showing how hapless the Mariners are: Throw a perfect game and they still lose.

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  14. Now that I think of it, you'll need to do one thing if the opportunity arises, Ken. Kevin Cremin will have to physically pull Rick out of the booth for the final out. Bingo. Ken Levine makes baseball history.

    Stick with me. I'll make you famous.

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  15. If Ken had been there, Rick still would have been doing the play-by-play, but it would have been nice to have his voice in there. It really is the luck of the draw. The Vin has done more than a dozen no-hitters. Ernie Harwell didn't have a Tigers no-hitter until he had been there more than 20 years.

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  16. "If Ken had been there, Rick still would have been doing the play-by-play..."

    Yes, that's right. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

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  17. I didn't realize it was a dayu game but stumbled across it in the 8th inning. I wish I'd seen it all, but since I consider myself a Mariner jinx I suppose it's just as well I missed the first seven innings.

    This win was especially satisfying when you consider Felix blew a 5-run lead his last time out.

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  18. Deadspin has Sims' scorecard up to look at: http://tinyurl.com/d84aao4

    look at all those zeros...

    And of course, Joe Maddon had to act up and get himself ejected.

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  19. My 91-year-old mother, who's so engrossed in the Nationals that she doesn't follow anything else in MLB, was persuaded by my younger brother to switch from the Nats' game at San Francisco to watch the end of the Hernandez game on MLB (which aired it in the D.C. market in lieu of the Nationals) and was engrossed in it. Then she went back and caught the finish of the Nats' 8-2 western trip -- it's mid-August and they've already clinched their first winning season on the road!

    BTW, I was lucky enough to see a perfecto in person -- David Cone at Yankee Stadium on July 18, 1999 against the Nationals' predecessors, the Montreal Expos.

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  20. As a lifelong M's fan, I was far too superstitious to turn it on. I followed it via ESPN updates on my phone, and left for the bar with one out left in the bottom of the 9th. I didn't get to see it, but at least it happened.

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  21. Mike, nothing intended.

    By the way, a nice story. When Dave Righetti pitched his no-hitter for the Yankees, Bill White had been doing most of the game on radio, but in the 9th, he turned to Frank Messer and said he should announce it because he was senior to White. Very classy.

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  22. Felix struck out 12 of the 27 batters he faced—only Matt Cain, Sandy Koufax and Randy Johnson have struck out and I really want to see it again

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  23. So Ken...does this mean there's no school in Venezuela tomorrow?

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