4 minute read
Better than perfect
Rabbi Adam F. Miller
It’s June, and summer is well underway. For sports fans, the change of season marks the transition into the heart of the baseball year. All around the country, fans gather in professional and minor league stadiums to watch the activity once dubbed “America’s Pastime.”
Baseball players can achieve a feat unparalleled in major sports — perfection. Only a baseball pitcher can be said to have thrown a perfect game — no hits, no walks, no errors. 27 men up, 27 men down.
Perfection is a heavy burden, but it is not statistically the rarest pitching feat in baseball. In more than a century and a half of professional baseball, there have been 318 no-hit games, 23 perfect games, and players have hit four home runs in a single game 18 times.
Two years ago, Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals threw 20 strikeouts in a game. He became only the fourth person to do so, and it was the fifth such game in all of baseball history. Historically, there have been 75% fewer 20-strikeout games than perfect games recorded in baseball. Why is a 20-strikeout game rarer?
When one has a perfect game, everything falls into place. The pitcher feels less stress because the rest of the team is fielding at an exceptionally high rate. Balls that might have been hits on other days, are being caught. Momentum starts to build, as does the pitcher’s confidence. Physically, it is the least taxing experience for a pitcher, having to face the absolute minimum number of possible hitters and throwing fewer pitches than in other games. While there may be mental pressure to stay focused, there are no runners on base and no mistakes to recover from.
In contrast to the experience of throwing a perfect game, Scherzer’s 20-strikeout game included two hits that were home runs. That didn’t slow him down. He kept doing his best, throwing hard and trying to strike out every batter. A strikeout, more than any other type of out in the field, depends on the skill of the pitcher to win the duel without the batter putting the ball into play. As such, Scherzer put in far more effort and displayed more skill in his 20-strikeout game than others did in recording a perfect game.
Perfection is elusive — an ideal that cannot be reached. Even the perfect game in baseball is an illusion — with good bounces, lucky breaks and strike calls all playing a role. There is a subjective element as well as events beyond all control. The Detroit Tigers experienced a near perfect game a few years ago. It came to an end with two outs in the ninth inning, when an umpire erroneously called a runner safe when he appeared to be out. That judgment call ruined a “perfect” game.
Recognizing the ephemeral nature of perfection, Judaism challenges us to strive for more than perfection. Instead, we are called to be like Max Scherzer, Kerry Wood, Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson — the four players with 20 strikeout games. Each one gave his best, remained undeterred by challenges that arose, and stayed the course. Just as their pitching accomplishment is even rarer than a perfect game, we strive to be even better than perfect.
When the great sage Reb Zusya was on his deathbed, his students asked him what he feared the most. One asked if Zusya was worried that he did not live up to the standard set by Moses or Abraham. Zusya looked at this student and said, “No, I fear most that I will be judged not by those greats, but by my own potential. Was I the best Zusya I could be?”
May we each strive this summer to reach our highest potential, so that when our time comes, and we are asked about the quality of our lives, we can each say, “I was better than perfect. I was the best me that I could me.”
Rabbi Adam Miller serves at Temple Shalom.
