Cain’s Perfect Game a Moment to Remember

For sport fans, there will always be moments that we never forget as they are rare and do not happen often. Fans always remember those moments that seemed unlikely such as witnessing a team winning the championship or someone setting a record that hadn’t been broken for years. It is those moments that fans know exactly where they were and what they were doing. For me and Giant fans around the world last night’s game against the Houston Astros was one of those moments. Matt Cain pitched a perfect game, the first in Giants franchise history.

            I will be the first to admit I did not watch most of the Giants game where Matt Cain pitched a perfect game.  I regret it, but who can predict the future and say, “Hey, I better watch tonight’s game because someone is going to throw a perfect game”?  Matt Cain’s perfect game was just the 22^nd perfect game thrown in Major League Baseball history and the first in the Giants 129 year history. So let’s just say a perfect game is rare. Anyone who says they knew Matt Cain was going to throw a perfect game is full of it.

            Still it was hard for me to miss most of that game knowing that I missed out on history. In fact I was going to go to the game with my dad but I told him I couldn’t go because I had plans. My dad then ended up planning on taking my mom but just a few hours before the game, he changed his mind and didn’t use the tickets. While I did not see most of the game, I did look a few times on my I-Phone to see how the Giants were doing on the scoreboard. I checked the score in the fifth inning and saw that it was 10-0 Giants. I then checked how the offense was doing on the stat sheet and saw that they were crushing the ball. It slipped my mind to see how Cain was pitching on the stat sheet so I had no clue that Cain was in the middle of history. I eventually went home to my place and was very close to not bothering watching the Giants game. It was around 10 PM and I figured the game was over and the Giants won due to having a ten run lead. Plus it was against the Astros so it wasn’t like I needed to see the game.  

            Luckily I did turn on the TV and the first thing I noticed was that Cain was in the middle of a count with a Houston batter. I then saw that it was the bottom of the ninth inning and there were already two outs. I heard the fans screaming like I never heard them scream before. It was as if Cain was pitching in game 7 of the World Series. I was thinking to myself, why were the fans acting so excited?  Sure, the fans have always been passionate but not to the level they were cheering. I was thinking, come on guys. They are playing a lousy Houston team and the game was already in the bag as the team was leading 10-0. It’s not like this would be the Giants first win of the season and it wouldn’t be the last, but I never head the fans act like this for other Giant wins. What made this game so special for this kind of reaction? Then I realized Cain was still pitching and had a chance for a complete game shutout. So then it hit me and I said to myself, “Is Cain pitching a perfect game?” I then saw the box score on the TV screen show the stats: no runs, no hits, and no errors.

            That’s when I knew what I was so close to missing completely: a chance to see a perfect game. Then Cain makes a pitch and the ball gets hit hard. I saw Joaquin Arias stumble with the ball and I thought, “Oh no! Don’t mess this up!” It brought me back memories of Juan Uribe, whose one error was the only blemish to Jonathan Sanchez’s no-hitter in 2009. That cost Sanchez a perfect game.  However, Arias recovered and made a great play and just like that I saw Cain pitch a perfect game, even if it was for a brief time. I called my parents right away, and when I told them that they missed out on going to a perfect game, they were shocked. Unlike me, they didn’t see the ending to the Giants game and were shocked that Cain threw a perfect game.

            Even though the moment was brief, I will always remember where I was and what I was doing, when Matt Cain pitched that perfect game on June 13, 2012. It will be just like Game 5 of the 2010 World Series. People always ask, “Where were you when the Giants won the World Series?” Well now people will ask the same thing of Matt Cain’s perfect game, the first in Giants history. It’s rare moments like these that fans like me cherish. It’s moments like these that go into history books. It’s moments like these that the media will always bring up. It’s moments like these that we will tell our grandkids about. It will especially be great moment for the lucky fans who were fortunate enough to witness the history live in the ballpark where it took place. My memory of this great game may not sound as sexy as some other stories that I am sure people can tell you, but it is one I will continue to tell people till the day I die. It is a moment that I will always cherish.