On this day in 1963, John Paciorek had the greatest one day career of any baseball player ever. He had 5 plate appearances, walked twice and had three singles. Not only that, he knocked in 3 runs and scored 4 himself. He hurt his back the following season and was never able to get back into the majors. Jose Morales has since tied Mr. Paciorek, however, he is still young and still playing. Chances are, he’ll get back to the majors and lose his 1.000 batting average. This got me thinking about what else might be regarded as perfect.
1) The Perfect Game in baseball is defined by getting 27 batters out in a row with no walks, errors, or hits. It has occurred only 17 times in the last 132 years. Wikipedia points out that more men have circled the moon than have pitched a perfect game. Most recently, this was done by Randy Johnson in 2004 but the most famous perfect game was tossed by Don Larson, in the 1956 World Series.
2) In the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Nadia Comaneci scored the first modern olympic perfect score. Interestingly enough, the scoreboards reported her scores as 1.0 because they weren’t setup to handle a perfect 10.
3. In bowling 300 is a perfect score and Jim Hosier of New Jersey has accomplished it 95 times. On 10 different occasions, people have bowled 300 for three consecutive games as part of a competition.
4) The Miami Dolphins are famously known for their perfect season. 16-0 including the Superbowl. New England came close last year, in fact beating the record for the most wins in a season, but, falling 35 seconds short of a 19-0 perfect record. 5 Teams have finished the regular season with a perfect record.
5) College sports has more than its share of perfect seasons. With its short football seasons, dozen of schools have finished perfectly. But basketball is a little tougher. Only 7 teams have finished with a perfect season in NCAA basketball with Indiana doing it most recently (1976) and almost doing it again in 1979. Of course, the most impressive record is UCLA doing it two consecutive years (1972-1973).
6) The last less than perfect numbers I could find show 939 perfect scores on the SAT out of 1.4 million people who took it. Of course since those numbers, they added the writing portion, cutting the percentage of people getting the perfect score in half.
7) A Hole in one has to be the perfect golf shot. Norman Manley of California has 59 of them. Tiger Woods scored one when he was just 6. The odds of it occurring are about one in 12,500 for the average golfer (1 in 12 million for me) and 1 in 2500 for a pro.
8) The NBA season is too long and the games too fast to think many people can achieve perfection, however, Wilt Chamberlain once had a game where he made all 18 of his shots and Dominque Wilkens holds the records for shooting 23 free throws in a game without a miss.
9. Goalies in the NHL are much more likely to have a perfect game than anyone else on the ice and Terry Sawchuk holds the record for the most shut outs in his career with 103 shut outs (though Brodeur is closing in on him). Patrick Roy has the record for shut outs in the playoff though with 23 (and again, Broduer is moving closer, only 1 shut out away in playoff shut outs).
10. The number 6 is the lowest mathematical perfect number. While I could spend some time laying out what a perfect number is, it would easier just to check out Wiki for this.
There is also a Perfect 10 might mean Bo Derek or some male model. There is the Perfect Storm, the Perfect Stranger, the Perfect Man or Woman. There are a lot of things which we might think of as a perfect. I find perfection on hot days by the beach while at the same time thinking the perfect ski run is the first one of the day on a slope of fresh powder. I may not get a hole in one, but an afternoon on the links sure seems perfect when compared to the office. Each of us find something that feels perfect, and Mr. Paciorek found his in 1963.
What is your perfect day?
