En route to looking up something else, I came across this Straight Dope classic about the definition of a truly perfect game:
(3) Which is more elegant, a perfect game accomplished in 27 pitches, each batter hitting into an out, or one accomplished in 81 strikes, giving the position players nothing to do at all?
Cecil answers:
(3) The number of pitches thrown during a perfect game is no more relevant than the number of brush strokes used to paint the Mona Lisa. A perfect game is just that: perfect. To cavil about the minor details of such a performance is to proclaim that one has the morals of a newspaper publisher. I need say no more.
I see his point (although I submit that fans have been arguing about baseballically philosophical questions since Doubleday), but he missed an obvious answer. 27 first-pitch lineouts back to the pitcher would accomplish both goals; nobody else - not even the catcher - would have to do anything!
We ARE talking about baseball, right?
The perfect game is one that was never played and substituted with a football game instead.
Bwah!
...or a hockey game!
Cecil rocks
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