Perfection.

What a day. What a weekend! This afternoon brought an example of how social media connects so many and ended with me in tears.

I left Marshfield this afternoon and headed home for Eau Claire. Once I got in range I checked my phone for messages, checked email, checked Twitter to see what was going on in the world. I was still heading down Highway 10 when Bill Simmons tweeted, a little after 3:00...

Hey @lewkay - did you see Dallas Braden is perfect-gaming Tampa for your League of Dorks team right now? No baserunners. Nothing. Zero.

I read it a couple times to make sure I had him right.

Dallas Braden, the pitcher who had been involved with a war of words against Alex Rodriguez, was perfect through seven innings.

I got to Neilsville and found a parking lot. AT&T is shit between Marshfield and EC and I didn't want to miss history being made.

I listened to the last two innings, the Oakland radio feed, on the MLB app for the iPhone. They talked about Braden's tough upbringing. They talked about Braden losing his mother to cancer when he was in high school. They talked about how his grandmother raised him ever since.

When Kouzmanoff went into the dugout to make a catch in the 8th I was screaming at the radio. When I heard the dread in the A's announcer as Navarro hit a rope to left my heart sank, and subsequently rose, when Patterson caught the liner. On the final out I was going bat-shit crazy when the perfect game was sealed.

The perfect game is one of those things that can happen to any pitcher but so very rarely does. Only 19 have happened in the history of major league baseball. If you look down the list of those that experienced one, you see some greats, but not a lot of legends. Young, Hunter, Koufax and Johnson did it. But so did a lot of guys without electric stuff. A lot of the all-timers, guys like Pedro, Maddux, Clemmons, Ryan and Gibson never had one.

To throw a perfect game is incredibly special. It's something every sports fan can get behind and cheer. During the Brewers game in Arizona today they showed the final out on the big screen in the stadium and the crowd cheered. It's just one of those things you root for.

When you consider the circumstances, how could you not?

It wasn't until tonight, when I saw the replay of what happened after the game, that the waterworks started.

(be sure to watch from 3:20-6:00)