Recently, a twelve year old New Jersey Little League pitcher pitched a perfect game. For those of you who are not baseball fans, a perfect game occurs when a pitcher retires every batter in a game, without any of them reaching base. It is one of the rarest feats in baseball and it is a game that the pitcher will never forget.
The Little League pitcher threw out the ceremonial first pitch in a professional game featuring the New York Mets and the Washington Nationals. Moreover, the pitcher has appeared on weekday morning television shows and even been the subject of conversation on ESPN.
Yes, even for kids, a perfect game is a big deal. That said, several perfect games are thrown every year in Little League baseball games. Why, you might ask, is this particular perfect game getting so much attention? In this case, the pitcher was twelve year old Mackenzie Brown – a girl playing a game that is usually reserved for boys. More importantly, she is a girl who – for at least that one game – “put a real hurting on the boys” (as one of my old coaches would have said).
Young Mackenzie Brown is not the first female to challenge males in sports that are usually dominated by men. Manon Rh
Just last week in our softball game a girl pitched a perfect game against us. It happens every day in Little League. It is easy for pitcher to dominate in Little League if they are slightly more advanced. While the promotion is great for the sport, to those of us close to the programs, it is not really that impressive.
I guess it doesn’t relate so much to the article as the fact that all the hullabaloo about the perfect game itself. I have to ask if you have a source for your quote that only fifty or sixty are thrown every year?
How can you know this? I have been directly involved in Little League for 20 years and have never seen a report to fill out to document this. I know my teams have had perfect games pitched against them more than once, and we are a small league in DeBary, FL. We did send a team to the World Series one year, so we are pretty competitive as well.
Little League Coach — I don’t understand how your comment relates to the article, and I think you are mistaken, as well. Only fifty to sixty perfect games are thrown in little league each year. That is a very small percentage of games played each year. The fact that a girl could throw a perfect game against boys is remarkable. We live in a very competitive little league district and I don’t believe any players have thrown a perfect game in the past decade.
If you follow the link included in David’s article, you will find the following reference:
“For those of you wondering just how special Mackenzie’s feat is, you can file it under ‘quite’. Though exact numbers are not kept, the national Little League office estimates that only 50 or 60 perfect games are thrown across the country each year.”
We are also in Florida and have been active in our district for the past 10 years. I do not believe that we have seen a perfect game in our district during that time.
I also do find it remarkable that a girl threw this particular perfect game. That is even more rare although, as noted in the link, it is not the first time that it has happened.
I think the greatest barriers come from within us. We set our own limitations more than others set them for us.
Your best effort yet, champ. Lots of stuff to think about here.
I come from a generation where there were a lot of barriers to women and basically discovered that, so long as you’re very good at what you do, there’s always someone out there willing to help you break through.
My personal belief is that the only limitations you suffer are those that you set up yourself and don’t believe you can overcome.
My son threw a perfect game in New Jersey during the All-Stars and I gotta tell ya, it was a magical night for him and his team, congrats to her because regardless of how many are thrown each year, to be perfect for that little while is pretty awesome, she should keep the line-up sheet from the coach.