Well, I had another blog written but it seems pretty useless now.
I don’t know what it is. Maybe helping all those old ladies cross the street or rescuing cats from trees has paid off in good karma. I’ve now seen not one, but two perfect games. No man can be this lucky. I’m half expecting a piano to fall on my head to balance out the universe.
It doesn’t take any skill to watch a perfect game but it sure does take a lot of skill to throw a perfect game and Manny Parra put all of those skills on display last night in Round Rock. In just his second AAA game Parra set down 27 batters in a row and made it look easy. He struck out a career high 11 batters and the Sounds defense did the rest.
It was obvious early on that Parra had good stuff. He struck out the first two batters on six pitches and threw strike one to the third batter before retiring him on a fly ball to center. When Humberto Quintero took the first pitch high to start the bottom of the sixth inning it was the first time all game that Parra had not thrown a first pitch strike! He only had three batters get to a ball three count and worked past all three.
The Sounds defense behind him was solid but had no tough plays to make. When Wasdin threw his perfect game in 2003 he had two stellar plays turned in by third baseman Mike Gulan. In Parra’s perfecto you could see the players behind him increase their effort with every out nearer to the end he came. Pop ups in foul territory became a life and death effort for Brad Nelson. Fly balls into the gap were treated like Faberge’ Eggs. The closest the Express came to a base hit was Barry Wesson’s tapper down the third base line that would have been a hit……….if it stayed fair. I still think the groans of the 8,600 fans in attendance when they saw how far Joe Dillon had to go to get to that ball somehow pushed it foul. And lets talk about the fans. My hats off to the fans of the Round Rock Express. They cheered for their team through the early innings when the Sounds held just a 1-0 lead, the lone run coming in the top of the first when Callix Crabbe ran through catcher Humberto Quintero to score from second on a Joe Dillon single to left, but as the game wore on they began to realize that something special was happening. Something that makes you forget that your team is losing. Something that transcends “Root, root, root for the home team”. Parra received an ovation after setting down consecutive batters 22, 23 and 24, received a standing ovation when he came to the plate in the ninth and cheered him as if he were one of their own when the perfect game was complete.
When first baseman Brad Nelson closed his glove around Jesse Garcia’s pop up to end the third nine-inning perfect game in the over 100 year history of the Pacific Coast League the celebration began. Catcher Mike Rivera, who would be driving Manny’s car if he could come up with a way to signal for it since Parra seemingly never shook him off all night, jumped into Parra’s arms. The players streamed out of the dugout and the bullpen and surrounded Manny, who suddenly had to worry if his greatest moment might end with Laynce Nix landing on his knee, and celebrated just as hard as when they won the PCL title two years ago. In one moment, the years of setbacks due to shoulder and back problems ceased to exist. Yours truly was screaming “PARRA IS PERFECT! PARRA IS PERFECT!” Fans and reporters gathered around the Sounds dugout to get a few quotes from Manny and, of course, all the fans wanted an autograph. I think they all got them.
As for me, after wrapping up the post game show I just sat there staring at the field, still not quite accepting what I had just seen. All the other players and coaches had left for the clubhouse. The only one left was the man of the hour Manny Parra.
The last thing I saw before I shut out the lights in my booth was Manny, the only player on the field, carrying his glove and making the long walk towards the left field corner and the clubhouse entrance. He had entered the field with something to prove and 27 batters later the field belonged to Manny Parra and Manny alone.
