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Friday, July 24, 2009
Puzzle: Rare Events in Baseball
Yesterday, Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox pitched a perfect game as his team shut out the Tampa Bay Rays 5–0. In a perfect game, no batter reaches base by any means whatsoever: base hit, base on balls, error, or hit by the pitch. All 27 batters of the losing team are retired in order. So difficult is this to accomplish that it has only occurred 18 times in the history of Major League Baseball, and 16 times since 1900 (the first two perfect games occurred five days apart in June 1880, but were played under substantially different rules than those of the modern game). Nonetheless, there are at least two circumstances in baseball which have happened on even fewer occasions in Major League play. Name them.Posted at July 24, 2009 19:42