~STORY OF THE WEEK~

PERFECTION IN OAKLAND

ANGRY & YOUNG, DALLAS BRADEN THROWS PEFECT GAME AGAINST BASEBALLS BEST TEAM

Dallas Braden’s handful of major league wins grew by one on Sunday. And it was one that will live in the annals of baseball. Braden, an Oakland Athletics left-hander, fired a perfect game against the visiting Tampa Bay Rays in a 4-0 victory. It was the 19th perfect game in major league history and only the 18th victory of Braden’s career. “Pretty cool,” Braden told reporters in Oakland. “I don’t know what to think about it just yet. There’s definitely a select group. I’d like to have a career more than today.” At 26, Braden is the youngest pitcher to throw a perfect game since Mike Witt of the Angels in 1984, when he was 24. The last pitcher with fewer career victories at the time of his perfect game was Charlie Robertson, whose 1922 gem for the Chicago White Sox was the second win of his career. Braden gained a measure of fame last month when he harshly criticized the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez for crossing the pitcher’s mound after a foul ball, supposedly violating an unwritten rule of baseball etiquette. Rodriguez dismissed Braden then as having only a handful of wins. Braden is 18-23. After the perfect game, Braden hugged his grandmother Peggy Lindsey, a Mother’s Day moment that was especially touching because Lindsey raised Braden after his mother, Jodie Atwood, died of skin cancer when he was a high school senior. Apparently, Lindsey is just as feisty as her grandson. When she met with reporters after the game, she said, “Stick it, A-Rod!” Told of Lindsey’s comment after the Yankees’ loss to the Red Sox in Boston on Sunday night, Rodriguez threw his arms up and said, “uncle, uncle” as he walked away from reporters. He was more measured before the game, noting that Braden beat the team the Yankees are chasing in the American League East. “Good for him, he threw a perfect game,” Rodriguez said. “And even better, he beat the Rays.” Braden did it by striking out six and throwing 109 pitches for his first career complete game. The final batter, Gabe Kapler, had resonance. In Chicago last July, it was Kapler who hit the ninth-inning fly ball that the White Sox’ Dewayne Wise corralled at the wall to save Mark Buehrle’s perfect game. Kapler was a tough out for Braden in the sixth inning Sunday, seeing 12 pitches before fouling out. But in the ninth, he swung at Braden’s 3-1 fastball — 87 miles per hour — and bounced it to shortstop Cliff Pennington, who threw to first baseman Daric Barton to end the game. Braden lifted his arms as Barton and catcher Landon Powell embraced him. Braden pointed to the sky to honor his mother and soon found Lindsey, wearing a pink-and-white A’s cap, by the Oakland dugout for a tearful hug. “It hasn’t been a joyous day for me in a while,” Braden said. “With my grandma in the stands, it makes it a lot better.” The perfect game significantly raises the profile of Braden, who grew up in Stockton, Calif., and joined the Athletics as a 24th-round draft choice out of Texas Tech in 2004. In an interview with Baseball America three years later, Braden said he partied too much in high school and fell in with the wrong crowd, jeopardizing his baseball potential. “I came real close to taking it away from myself, then my grandmother stepped in and kind of slapped me back into shape and got me going,” he said. “I told my grandma that someday she would watch me pitch in the majors.” Braden reached the Athletics in 2007 but went 1-8 with a 6.72 earned run average. He has improved each year since, and in an interview last Wednesday with CSNBayArea.com, he defended his place in the game. “I didn’t know that there was a criteria in order to compete against A-Rod,” he said. “I didn’t know that. I’m pretty sure that everybody that dons a major league uniform has earned the right to pitch at this level, and has earned the right to face whomever steps in that batter’s box.” In that same interview, Braden acknowledged never having met Rodriguez. But he called him “an individualistic player” and said he was “not a fan of his antics,” a reference to other questionable plays in Rodriguez’s career. Braden also said the mound-crossing incident should teach Rodriguez to respect the game’s unwritten rules, though many baseball people said they were unaware of the one about treading on the mound. Yet Braden has said he believed so strongly in it that he would have had the same reaction if his grandmother had committed the offense. In the visitors’ clubhouse in Boston on Sunday, the Yankees’ A. J. Burnett watched Braden and Lindsey celebrating. Remembering the Rodriguez imbroglio, Burnett cracked, “Grandma, I love you, but don’t cross my mound!” (MLB.com)