What it Takes to Pitch a Perfect Baseball Game

What does it really take to pitch a perfect baseball game? For old fans and new, young and old, male and female getting the chance to watch the completion of a perfect game by a pitcher on any major league baseball team in either league is surpassed only by watching your favorite team make the playoffs or win the World Series. A perfect game is the goal that every pitcher strives for and oh so few achieve. In fact in 134 years of organized professional baseball one might expect there to have been at least 100 perfect games. Wrong! In fact in all that time only 19 pitchers have achieved perfect.

That's because there are lots of different and surprising elements that go into the completion of a perfect baseball game. When you consider all of these elements and the fact that all have to line up for one pitcher in one game, the task becomes a bit more daunting.

Of course the most significant element in completing a perfect game is the actual pitching skill of the pitcher. Does he have a solid variety of pitches and on one occasion can rely on delivering all of those pitches with perfection? To complete the perfect game then begins with pretty much perfect control on the part of the pitcher. There just isn't any room for error. One miscue can become "ball four" and the end of the perfect game because a perfect game means no hits and no walks either. One pitch that goes right down the middle instead of just catching the corner can end up in left field as a single or over the right field fence as a home run and in either case ending the no hitter.

Along with good pitching skill, included in what it takes to pitch a perfect baseball game has to be good concentration and emotional control. Missing your spot on one pitch or getting what you consider to be a bad call by the umpire can't upset your apple cart if you really are gunning for that perfect game. You have to have the mental and emotional toughness to look beyond that pitch immediately before one bad call or pitch turns into a series of bad pitches that batter use to execute hits or pick up walks.

After a pitcher, pitches a perfect game he has other people to credit for his success. The catcher in most cases has been calling the game for him, telling him which pitches to deliver to which batters. While the catcher isn't the one throwing the perfect game, he is the one "calling" the perfect game. It's also the catcher who knows the pitcher well enough to sense when it might be time to walk out to the mound and calm him down or help him focus. The catcher is the right hand man for any pitcher interested in completing a perfect game.

When thinking about it takes to complete a perfect game you also have to give a nod to the other 7 fielders on the team. Sometimes it is precisely their heads up, talented response that keeps that perfect game perfect. It's good fielding after all that turns an infield ground ball into an out rather than letting it develop into an infield hit. Similarly its speed, agility and judgment that allows outfielders to get to the wall just in time to make a last minute grab of a ball seemingly destined for the seats. Every player on the field in fact has a role in helping a pitcher to claim a perfect game.

The thing is there are also lots of other variables that can stand in the way of a very good pitcher, with an outstanding catcher and an excellent collection of fielders complete that illusive perfect game. For example, you might be humming along, zipping through one scoreless inning after another when all of a sudden the pitcher develops a blister, pulls a hamstring or aggravates an old shoulder problem. The good efforts accrued over 6 or 7 innings along the way to what might have been a perfect game are for naught.

Or in a similar scenario, at about the sixth inning rain begins pelting the field and the grounds crew is called. The umpire determines that the game can be restarted but after an hour and a half wait, muscles have stiffened and the pitcher is no longer able to go out and complete what might have been his one chance at history and a perfect game.

Like the perfect storm, finishing a perfect game requires a simultaneous occurrence of many elements. What it takes to pitch a perfect game is lots of skill on the part of pitcher, catcher and fielders but also the alignment of a number of other instances that have nothing to do with skill at all and are really a matter of pure chance. If you get the chance to see a perfect game, know that you have seen history being made.