Let’s pretend Bartolo Colon pitched a perfect game, because we deserve that
By Josh Hill
Bartolo Colon almost pitched a perfect game on Sunday, but let’s pretend that he did because the world deserves that.
The world is often times a cruel, unforgiving place. We live in an age where good news is hard to come by, and good vibes are even rarer. As a society, we deserve something nice every once in a while; we deserve a pitcher nicknamed Big Sexy throwing a perfect game.
Bartolo Colon, on national television, almost gave us exactly that. Big Sexy, as the 44-year old pitcher is so affectionately called, took a perfect game into the eighth inning before Josh Reddick broke it up.
Instead of living in a world where Colon’s perfect game was broken up, let’s just pretend that Big Sexy pulled it off. Because we all deserve something nice and there are few things as gratifying as a 44-year pitcher defying all the odds.
Bartolo Colon just wanted to bring a little beauty to a cruel world.
— Jim Rome (@jimrome) April 16, 2018
Colon going perfect that deep into the game is something that shouldn’t have happened. Seriously, there was nothing particularly nasty about what Colon was dealing, he was simply being consistent.
Bartolo Colon has thrown 83 pitches tonight, and 71 of them have been fastballs. The last 21 pitches he has thrown: fastballs. It's about to be the eighth inning, and he hasn't thrown an off-speed pitch since the fifth. Oh, and that fastball: It's sub-90 mph more often than not.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) April 16, 2018
Had he pulled it off, Colon would have become the oldest pitcher in MLB history to toss a perfect game. Randy Johnson holds the record, having gone perfect at age 40 back in 2004. It also would have been the first perfect game since 2012, when we absurdly had three (!!!) pitchers toss perfect games that season.
When something like this happens in the first month of the season, everyone is quick to chalk it up to hitters still shaking off spring rust. The fact that Colon almost did this while mostly pitching a sub-90 MPH fastball seems to support that theory, but it doesn’t matter.
The world deserved Bartolo Colon pitching a perfect game. If the people of Springfield can conveniently go on with their lives believing Armin Tamzarian is Principal Skinner, we can pretend that Colon pulled this off. Baseball is a long season, this is a reminder that there’s scenery along the way worth appreciating.
Nothing is more perfect than that.