a perfect game for the A's

Yesterday, on Mother's Day, Oakland A's pitcher Dallas Braden pitched only the 19th perfect game in major league history. It's a step beyond a no-hitter, allowing no hits, no walks, no hit batters, and even more tenuously, no fielding errors. 27 up, 27 down. Even the box score for the opposing team has to be perfectly 0-for-3 up and down the lineup (well, okay, there could be pinch hitter situations that would mess that up, but still...).

I learned on one of the sports shows this morning that it was the only perfect game ever thrown on Mother's Day, which makes the accomplishment even more special because of Dallas Braden's circumstances. He lost his mother to skin cancer when he was still in high school. Today's paper had a nice article about him and how lost and unfocused he was after her death, and how his grandmother was the one to get him back on track with his life and career. If you've seen any highlights from yesterday's game, there is the touching one where he and his grandmother are holding each other in a big bear hug on the field just outside the dugout, after he broke away from the swarm of his teammates. It was enough to bring tears to my eyes.

I haven't actually read the particulars, but I'm assuming that the grandmother that was at the game is his maternal grandmother. So even with the focus on him and their relationship, how he lost his mother to melanoma, I can't help but think about how she had lost her daughter to melanoma at the same time. I still have a picture in my mind of my own grandmother sobbing after one of my aunts and my father, two of her children, died within months of each other. Watching my nieces and nephews growing into adulthood, I am more and more aware of the emotions tied into that process - Mother's Day (and Father's Day) really is for all generations of parents.