Left field
The Reuters global sports blog
A Memorable Memorial Day Weekend
Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay is a perfectionist, meticulous in his preparation and attention to detail and one of baseball’s best pitchers over the last decade.
Halladay, the right-hander nicknamed ‘Doc’, removed a bad taste in his mouth from his previous outing with perfect precision — by throwing the 20th perfect game ever in Major League Baseball in a 1-0 win Saturday against NL East rivals the Florida Marlins.
The 6-foot-6 right-hander, battered for seven runs his last time out against the Boston Red Sox, retired all 27 batters in order without letting a single player reach base, striking out 11 for good measure to improve his 2010 mark to 7-3 and help keep the Phillies in first place.
Remarkably, it was the second ‘perfecto’ of the month following the gem tossed by Oakland Athletics left-hander Dallas Braden against the Tampa Bay Rays on May 9.
Do breaches of sporting etiquette matter?
Baseball etiquette, or the so-called “unwritten rules” of the Summer Game, has elbowed its way into the sport’s headlines this early season.
We’re not talking about pedestrian infractions of Emily Post protocol like admiring a home run off your bat for a couple of extra seconds, or taking too languorous a home run trot around the bases, or stealing a base with a big lead.
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Resident Left Field Expert
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