Vacation was "Perfect"

Okay....so for vacation I meant to take a few days off; instead I took a year. What's the difference? At this point, no one is reading anyway. I'm just blogging to myself.

A lot of stuff happened since the last blog ----to name a few, Michael Phelps; Celtics-Lakers; U.S soccer team victory over Spain; Jay Cutler orchestrates his own trade out of Denver; the passing of Harry Kalas and A-Rod, Big Papi and Manny Ramirez are all named as steroid users and so much more.

But as we head into the dog days of summer, there certainly isn't any shortage of things to write about, that's for sure. And I have a lot of catching up to do so here we go.

First, The Ying.

Tonight in Chicago, pitcher Mark Buehrle will be facing Kansas City's Brian Bannister as the White Sox face off against the Royals. And why does anyone care about a mid-August baseball games between two teams, albeit one in a pennant race while the other, the second worst team in baseball? Well, outside of Chicago (2 1/2 game behind first place) , I don't think anyone cares, except maybe Detroit (first place).

No, what's interesting about tonight's game is who is pitching, and the kind of deal he must have made with the devil to grab his 15 minutes of glory. If you recall back on July 23, 2009, Mark Buehrle faced the Tampa Rays and pitched a perfect game-the 18th in major league history. Its really a remarkable feat when you think about it. If you consider that there were approximately 350,000 games played since 1900 and each game consisting of two pitchers, that means there were approximately 700,000 chances to achieve such perfection but yet only 18 were able to do it. You have to wonder how this sort of mastery can be obtained without a little help from The Big Man. Because without Divine intervention, it just seems implausible.

So now, in accordance with our pop culture requisite, the man is knighted. We cast upon him our adjulation (deservedly or not). Congratulatory phone calls from the President, an appearance on the Letterman show, named the MLB Pepsi clutch player of the month and bestowed upon him a "Mark Buerhle Day" proclaimed by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn in his honor. Its good to be the king, eh?

But that's not where this story ends. In his next start against Minnesota on July 28, he retired the first 17 Twins batters he faced. By doing so, he set a Major League record for consecutive batters retired. Over a three game period, Buerhle retired 45 consecutive batters, which broke the old record of 41, held by Bobby Jenks in 2007 (also a White Sox pitcher) and Jim Barr in 1972 (SF Giants).

He's a pitching machine! He can part the sea, walk on water, create peace on earth. Can he do no wrong?????? Well........

Now -- The Yang.

After retiring 45 consecutive batters in 15 innings, Buehrle gave up 28 hits and 17 earned runs over the next 12 1/3 innings (sigh). Well, I'm not sure what Buehrle's take on all of this is but I'll bet there's nothing like a good pounding to wipe any omninpotent thoughts that might be swirling 'round ones head to bring one back to reality. Life has a way of evening things out a bit, doesn't it?

So who will show up tonight to pitch for the White Sox? Who knows.......it's a ying/yang thing.