The Chicagoist Flashback: Mark Buehrle's Perfect Game

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jul 23, 2012 8:25PM

Three years ago today Kevin Robinson and I took the afternoon off from our respective jobs at the time and headed to Sox Park for what we hoped would be a White Sox winner.

What we witnessed instead was history. We were deep into the game: chatting; taking in some sun and beer; when one of us —I think it was Kev—took a look at the scoreboard around the seventh inning stretch. The others in attendance must have looked at the scoreboard around the same time because that’s when the crowd suddenly grew louder.

As Mark Buehrle inched closer to making baseball history, the atmosphere in the crowd grew tenser with each pitch. With good reason: Buehrle, among other things, can usually be relied on for one bad inning a game. Tampa at the time also had a team on-base percentage of .343, which meant the Rays were unlikely to be no-hit, let alone not make base.

Then there was that amazing catch of by DeWayne Wise of Gabe Kapler’s certain home run to left-center field. When Wise came down with the ball in his glove the crowd of 28,036 roared as though it was a sold out ballpark, and grew even louder when Alexei Ramirez recorded the final out.

Today Wise is still working his outfield magic, only for the Yankees. Buehrle traded in his Sox pinstripes for thee colors insulting to Nature of the Miami Marlins. I still have the tickets from that game stuck to the cork board in my office with a thumb tack. I should get them framed.