Thank you to Mark Buehrle. Thank you to DeWayne Wise. Thank you to the Chicago White Sox for rescuing all of us from the oozing swamp that dominates sports media coverage during the late summer. The months of July and August mark the season of scandal. It's the time when websites, sports radio stations, and certain ubiquitous 24 hour sports networks strain to fill 1,440 minutes a day by endlessly excavating stories that make a viewer wish for a scalding hot shower and a Brillo pad. The games themselves become little more than background noise.
The last month says it all: this is the season when the serious (the murder of Steve McNair), the silly (did Lebron smoke weed in high school?) and the insufferable (is Brett Favre coming back? Do I have to care?) dominate beyond all proportion to their importance. This is the time when a horrible violation of reporter Erin Andrews' privacy, as she was filmed unknowingly in a state of undress, becomes a call to endlessly rehash how her privacy was violated. These discussions are not necessarily frivolous. But they hardly remind us why we fell in love with the games themselves. These are the low times, times when the "US Weekly-ification" of sports is in full turd blossom bloom.
And that's why I am grateful to Mark Buehrle for reminding us all exactly why we all fell in love with sports in the first place. The White Sox lefthander needed just two hours to throw a perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays. 27 up. 27 down. It's only happened 17 times before -- and the 30-year-old did it against one of the premier hitting teams in all of baseball. This accomplishment transcends hyperbole.
The last time a Chicago pitcher reached perfection, Warren G. Harding was president and Eugene Debs had just run for the same office from prison. It's all the more remarkable because Buehrle hardly fits the perfect game profile. Pitchers like Randy Johnson and Sandy Koufax are among the 18 who have done it. The flamethrowers among us throw these gems because strikeouts bluntly reduce the possibility of a "ground ball with eyes" rolling into center field for a cheap hit. Buehrle would have a tough time breaking a pane glass window. But the little known pitcher has now thrown a perfect game along with a no hitter in 2007. He joins Koufax and Cy Young as the only pitchers to throw a perfect game and a no-hitter while allowing just one walk combined in both outings.
The perfect game is so singular because it doesn't happen without a poetic dialectic between the individual greatness of the pitcher and the flawless team fielding needed to back him up. This is especially the case with Buehrle who had just six strikeouts. That means 21 balls were in play with not an error to be found.
This was crystallized by one defensive play that announcer Hawk Harrelson called one of the best catches he has ever seen in 50 years in the sport.
The perfect game, the no hitter, and the shut out were all preserved by a 9th inning defensive replacement in centerfield named DeWayne Wise who climbed the wall to rob Gabe Kapler of a home run. The mere fact that White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen made this chess move is astonishing enough. Wise is much maligned in Chicago for not living up to his vast athletic potential. We all saw that potential in one of the great defensive plays in history. It was like seeing ballet and roller derby rolled into one. Wise leaped like Baryshnikov and slammed his body into the wall with an unholy impact, juggled the ball and caught it with his bare hand. Wise made a play that could become iconic -- not of a Hall of Fame career, but of why we love sports in the first place: because it expands our imaginations of both what is possible and what we can accomplish.
That is sports at its best: individual greatness conjoined with indispensable teamwork. All the infinite toxic waste and empty noise produced by the athletic industrial complex can't sully what the Chicago White Sox accomplished. It's proof positive that the only thing that can save sports is sports itself.
Dave Zirin is the author of "A People's History of Sports in the United States" (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com