Felix is ours and you can’t have him | The Good Guys Sports Blog

Nothing is perfect. We hear that phrase thrown around often, especially when things aren’t going well in our lives. In fact, we probably hear it too often.

Humans often get caught up in the fact that no one lives a perfect, innocent life and don’t realize that there are perfect moments, events and things that happen everyday. We drive down a country road at sunset and don’t think twice about the view. We slow dance with our closest friend, swaying to the song that makes your heart do flips but we can’t stop thinking about what we have to do tomorrow. We watch the perfection slip by while we worry. Those moments that don’t slip by are the memories we keep forever.

Felix in his perfection

Today, I was driving back from dinner with my brother, 2 sisters and girlfriend. We stumbled upon the topic of pausing moments. There are always moments that we wish we could keep going, yet they pass. I believe that if we had the ability to pause them our minds would just move on to what’s wrong with it instead of soaking it in. Humans are cynical, no matter the amount of cheer they possess. But, we don’t have the ability to pause moments and dissect them, break them down to their core and pick out what’s wrong with them. That’s why they’re perfect. You can breathe them in, realize how beautiful life is at the moment and then, before you know it, you’re back at your job on a Tuesday afternoon.

On Wednesday afternoon, August 16th, Felix Hernandez was perfect. He didn’t strike out 27 batters on 81 strikes, never allowing a batter to put the bat on the ball. It may have not been the best pitching performance the world has ever seen. But, perfection shouldn’t be weighed and measured, it should be clung to and then turned into a memory.

Every year, college football players who are headed for the NFL gather before the draft at the combine. They all have their height taken. Some are too short, some are too tall. They all run a timed sprint. Many are too slow. At the end of the week, players have gone up or down the draft board but no player is judged as perfect. There were flaws in even Andrew Luck’s game. Believe it or not, there are flaws in Felix’s game. His pitches can appear unhittable, but they aren’t. They aren’t perfect.

I was walking in from the hot tub today (I’m on vacation) around 2:15 and flipped on the TV just to see what was going on in the Mariners game. I was more interested in taking a shower, to be honest. Then, I saw what was happening. I watched the last 3 innings of Felix Hernandez’s perfect game with my brother, cousin, and sister. I honestly don’t know if there was a better circumstance to watch it under, probably, but the moment was perfect when I saw the final out of the game.

My friend Derek went to Felix’s first ever home start with me about 7 years ago (I believe that’s right). That was the only time he saw Felix pitch until today, when he sat in the King’s Court with his fiance. For there not being anything perfect in this world, that seems like perfect poetry to me.

Around this time of the year, the blog starts to focus on football. It’s not because we aren’t watching the Mariners, a couple of us usually are. It’s just that football is fresh and exciting and the Mariners, well, they aren’t. In the next couple days, we’ll probably put up posts that deal with football and move our attention away from the home town nine once again. We could debate if this was the best pitching performance we’ve ever seen. We could worry about the Seahawks quarterback controversy and who will start at linebacker for the Huskies. But, we shouldn’t. Today is reserved for dwelling in the perfect moment of Rodriguez taking a devastating 92 MPH change-up on the inside corner, Felix throwing his arms into the sky and his teammates mobbing him. We froze that moment in our minds, and filed them under the folder titled, ‘Felix Is Ours And You Can’t Have Him’. We pause because Felix Hernandez faced 27 hitters and retired them in a row. We pause, not in the perfect moment, but to realize that life can be perfect in some moments.