With COVID-19 keeping our beloved game on the shelf right now, I felt remembering why we love the game would be a good thing. Reviewing why I love the game woven with the best game I’ve ever attended in person seemed a good way to do it. I hope you enjoy as much as I did putting it together!

First inning: "We don't have to go."

We were on the side of Highway 37 between Huron and Mitchell, pulled over after I had been overwhelmed by emotion as a song played while my wife and I drove down the road. Early that morning, my grandfather passed away, but we were on the way to our honeymoon. It wasn't a special song or anything like that. In fact, I cannot even tell you what song it even was.

Our honeymoon was to be an incredible experience, which is why we waited until 10 months after we were wed to take off on the two-week bus trip that would include 10 baseball games, a visit to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, stops in New York City, and multiple other stops along the way. My grandfather's health had declined significantly in the years prior to my wedding, to the point where the once strong, proud man who seemed unflappable by any measure was effectively blind and confined to a wheelchair at our wedding, but he was able to be there.

The day we were to leave on our honeymoon, he passed away after a long, multiple-month decline. The decision to leave had been made already, but an emotional song on that drive got to me as we made the trip to a hotel the night before leaving for our honeymoon.

My wife was immediately understanding, "Ben, we don't have to go."

"No, he wanted us to. I just need a moment. We'll go."

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Watching both pitchers throw their first innings, it was clear this was going to be a special game, however, if you would have asked me, I would have told you that Francisco Liriano was going to have the biggest day. Liriano gave up a single to Denard Span to lead off the bottom of the first inning, but a ground ball double play eliminated Span quickly, and Liriano was able to get Nationals superstar Bryce Harper to look foolish in popping out to third base.

Meanwhile, at the top of the inning, Scherzer was more efficient (six pitches to eight for Liriano), but he also had arguably the loudest-hit ball of the entire game as Starling Marte took a ball to nearly straightaway centerfield for the second out of the inning. With the wind working against a right-handed hitter hitting the ball to the right-center gap, Marte's ball was nabbed by Bryce Harper on a running grab.

After 14 combined pitches, one hit, no runs, and only two balls called in the 14 pitches, the first inning was complete.

My wife and I at the Nationals/Pirates game 6/20/15

Second & Third Inning: "She's a nice lady"

Both pitchers remained on a torrid pace through the second and third innings. Liriano seemed to be struggling some with control in the 2nd inning, but he recovered for a seven-pitch inning in the third, punctuated by giving up a single to Scherzer and then getting Span to ground into a double play on the first pitch of the next at-bat.

Scherzer cruised through the second on nine pitches, but he seemed to have trouble putting guys away in the third when even Liriano was able to foul off pitches before striking out. After three innings, the two pitchers lined up fairly well:

Scherzer - 3 IP, 26 pitches (20 strikes, 6 balls), 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K

Liriano - 3 IP, 27 pitches (26 strikes, 11 balls), 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K

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The first to truly breathe baseball into my life was my great grandmother. She was a hardcore Cubs fan, and she was bound and determined to have another baseball fan in the family. She would visit South Dakota while she was living in Arizona, and she would always put a baseball game on the television when I was there.

Though she was a Cubs fan, my great grandmother had an intense love for Hank Aaron because of what he had dealt with while pursuing the home run record before I was even born. Her praise of him encouraged me to research him at my elementary school library, and I was hooked on the Braves as a fan, even in the midst of a horrific time to be a Braves fan in the 1980s!

As Alzheimer's took its grip on her, my great-grandma would often discuss Cubs teams from the 1960s, requiring me to learn my baseball history well just to keep up in baseball talk. In one of those games, my grandmother, her daughter, came to offer us a refill on our water, and my great grandmother made the comment as she walked away, "She's such a nice lady!"

I didn't fully grasp the gravity of that statement at that time, but I knew it was strange when we were watching a Cubs game as Rick Sutcliffe mowed down Expos and even had a double at the plate when they showed "highlight" video of the Braves and Padres brawling, a brawl that still gets played on television to this day. She flipped between talking about current Cubs players in the game we were watching and previous older Braves players when talking about the brawl.

She passed away before I hit my teens.

Fourth Inning: "First chink in the armor"

Scherzer continued his brilliance in the fourth inning, but Liriano experienced his first real chink in the armor in the fourth inning as Bryce Harper took him deep for the game's first run. Otherwise, Liriano set the other three National hitters without much concern, but Harper's hit left no doubt that Liriano would not be in this game for the long run, while Scherzer only seemed to be getting stronger.

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I'd seen the man do so many feats of personal and physical strength in his life while I was growing up that it really seemed like a joke when my grandfather first showed signs that his eyes were growing weak.

After years of refusing to take proper care of his eyes, glaucoma had eaten away at his vision. The man who once worked full-time at a meatpacking plant while also farming for many years and even into his 60s and 70s was left unable to drive or even safely walk without someone assisting him

He was wheeled down the aisle at my wedding, but he was there. That winter, however, things took a turn with his health, and he was put into nursing care first and then hospice care. It was during this hospice time that we discussed my upcoming honeymoon as I was terribly conflicted about whether to go if it meant missing his funeral. He listened to the plans for 10 baseball games, a trip to Niagara Falls, a trip to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, two days in New York City to explore, visits to the capitol building and Arlington Cemetery in Washington, D.C., and much more. He told me, in very clear terms, that I needed to go on the trip. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We finished our talk that day with a discussion on the need for rain in the area.

We couldn't talk much after that as fluid had entered his lungs, making it difficult to breathe. He passed on the day we were to leave for our honeymoon.

L to R: my grandfather, my grandmother, my wife, and me

Fifth & Sixth inning: "All over but the final score"

Growing up in South Dakota, even with a huge love of the game, there simply wasn't a lot of opportunity to expand that love of the game. I did go to the local "big town" and play organized Little League for two summers, but my school friends all played for the town ball teams supported by my little town. There I progressed up the levels as I aged, maturing with plenty of natural strength, but also with a notable gut until I got to be in my teens when the boom began to outweigh the belly.

I could throw hard, and that was utilized by my coach both on the mound and at third base, where I had good instincts for the position. I had nailed a board on the side of a wooden shed on our farmstead when a county truck used to spray noxious weeds in ditches broke down near our home. While the two workers waited for help to come to fix the truck, one of them, a pitcher at the local college, noticed my target. He spent time showing me drills to work on strengthening my arm and improving my control. It would not just fuel my passion for the game, but it added a depth of exploration within the game that led me to evaluate others.

My coach that season took my basic skills in scorekeeping and encouraged them, allowing me to keep book for the age groups younger than me. He also showed me small tells in a person’s swing or pitching delivery that indicated potential success. Then, what appeared to be a disaster to me occurred as I was playing third base when someone attempted to steal. I got in good position to receive the throw, putting my foot in front of the bag to deny the bag, but the throw went a touch high, so I stood up to receive it, leaving my toes down rather than my foot sideways in front of the bag as I always did.

My big toe was fractured by the slide directly into the toe. I was able to pitch, wearing a basketball shoe on one foot and an open-toed boot on my other, but I was fairly useless anywhere else in the field and on the bases after that. While I didn’t know it for certain yet, that was the end of playing the game for me.

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Scherzer and Liriano both breezed through the fifth inning, with Liriano actually striking out two Nationals in the inning. Scherzer matched the two strikeouts in the top of the 6th inning, sending the game to the bottom of the inning still at 1-0.

Liriano got a quick groundout from Scherzer, but then a long at-bat against Denard Span turned into a dropped third strike that led to Span on first base. Span would steal second, and he came around on Anthony Rendon’s gap double to left-center. Harper followed with a sharp single opposite field that found its way into left field, and suddenly the Nationals were up 3-0.

Liriano had lost his ability to locate at that point, and the only strike he threw to Wilson Ramos was the single that Ramos slapped between the shortstop and third baseman. Danny Espinosa bunted Harper and Ramos to second and third before Tyler Moore took a 1-2 pitch into right field on a sharp ground ball, scoring two and spending the end of the day for Liriano. Rob Scahill replaced him on the mound.

Liriano’s day was complete with 5 ⅔ innings pitched, seven hits allowed, one walk allowed, six strikeouts, and trailing 5-0. Scherzer was still perfect, having tossed six innings and only tallied 67 total pitches. He had seven strikeouts and had settled into complete control of the game. It was just a matter of the final score at this point.

Seventh & Eighth Inning: “Waiting to write the final chapter”

Vance Worley came in for the Pirates in the 7th and 8th innings. He did allow hard contact that led to a double for Michael A. Taylor and a loud opposite-field fly out for Harper and he was plenty wild, but he escaped the two innings of work with one hit allowed, one run that came in on a wild pitch, no walks and a pair of strikeouts.

Scherzer, meanwhile, was mowing guys down. He struck out the Pirates top two hitters in the seventh inning as Marte and Andrew McCutchen couldn’t come close to his stuff, and the top of the eighth saw the biggest challenge be a hard-hit ground ball by Pedro Alvarez that could have been a challenge if someone with even 40-grade speed was running, but Alvarez didn’t have that at that point, and the humidity of the day had led to overcast skies, seemingly bringing out lethargic motion in everyone.

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My first visit to Wrigley with my college roommate

South Dakota has no high school baseball. Well, there is high school ball as a club sport, but not as recognized as an official high school sport by the state’s governing board. The growth of the game as a club sport is, even within the last 15-20 years, well after I would have had the chance to play. Using techniques taught to me by that college pitcher that spent an afternoon with his truck broken down near our farm, I had developed into a very strong pitcher, touching 81 MPH at 14 years old at a summer radar showcase.

That was the end of baseball for me, though. The end of playing the game, that is. South Dakota has a very strong history of Legion baseball due to the lack of high school ball, but Legion ball was way too many games in the peak of hay season for a farm boy who was free labor for his father. I turned toward high school and football, and quickly my physicality changed as the weight room and I agreed well, and shoulder flexibility to throw from multiple arm angles like I did previously was not there in the same way as before.

I was a hardcore baseball fan, though, often sneaking off to my bedroom to pour over the latest Baseball Weekly to review the newest statistics. I had a checking account at that time, and I entered multiple fantasy leagues through the advertisements on Baseball Weekly pages, even winning one when I was a sophomore in high school.

College put me across a bridge from the Metrodome, so friends would go to Twins games when they were cheap (and the Twins were not that good), able to use our college IDs to get into the game for $3 and, if you went on dollar dog night, you could have two hot dogs as well and spend just $5 for the experience.

My eventual college roommate and I were both baseball nuts, taking a trip after college while we were both single guys to Chicago to experience Wrigley Field, where I got to watch the Braves play, experience Wrigley, and then to finish our trip, we went to a game in the newly-opened Target Field and watched Justin Verlander blow by the Twins for his 20th victory on the season before the calendar had even flipped to September.

I moved back to my hometown and was working in social work when I met my wife online in a chat room. We began dating and were engaged within a year. Incredibly, the same year I met my wife, I also was offered a chance to write about the game I loved for the first time as the editor at Fansided’s Tomahawk Take site noted my posts on other Braves fan sites and asked me to write. Weaving dating and marrying my wife with the growth of my baseball writing alongside my social work day job led to an opportunity to work from home writing while beginning the final chapter of my baseball journey.

The Nationals celebrate after Scherzer finishes the game. The stadium was shaking and weather so humid that this is as clear as any of my shots of the moment!

Ninth Inning: It’s not perfect, but it’s perfection.

The day started with an opening pitch temperature of 91 degrees and heavy humidity. Unknown to us in the stands at the time, Scherzer had changed his undershirt in the air-conditioned clubhouse in between every inning. By the time the ninth inning came around, those who were in the game the whole day were simply ready to be done.

The Pirates were the hottest team in baseball coming into the game, but Scherzer was pretty hot himself coming into the matchup, as he had just put together a monster start against the Brewers with 16 strikeouts, allowing one hit and one walk over nine innings. The control he had over the game to this point really left just the pitcher’s spot in the order as the only risk to him, with the potential for a number of guys to come off the Pirates bench to battle with Scherzer.

The first hitter in the ninth was Gregory Polanco. After swinging through a 95 mph fastball, Polanco was way in front on an 80 mph curve, weakly popping up to Rendon in foul territory. Next up was Jordy Mercer, who had put a ride into a ball in the third inning, jumping on a first-pitch fastball and catching outfielder Michael A. Taylor out of position, causing Taylor to have to make a tough grab to record the out. Mercer jumped on a 96 mph first-pitch fastball and gave it a ride to center field, but it was right at center fielder Denard Span. Two outs, and now the pitchers spot was up for the Pirates.

The Pirates had not used a pinch hitter that day. They had an impressive collection available. Corey Hart was not the same player he once was, but just three years earlier, he had clubbed 30 home runs for the Milwaukee Brewers. Sean Rodriguez was the Pirates’ super-utility man who had plenty of power. From 2014 (with Tampa Bay) through 2016, Rodriguez pounded out 41 doubles, five triples, and 34 home runs while not exceeding 300 at bats in any of the three years. Chris Stewart was the backup catcher, so he was likely out, but he was hitting .281 at the time. Finally, typical starter Neil Walker was getting a day off and was available on the bench. While he was in a slump at the time, Walker was a switch-hitter, which meant he was the only option on the bench that could hit left-handed against Scherzer.

Instead, the Pirates went with former elite prospect Jose Tabata. As a long-time fantasy player, I owned Tabata when he was a top-30 prospect as part of the Yankees farm system. After he was traded to the Pirates, Tabata quickly reached the major leagues and signed a long-term deal that covered 2011-2016 with options for 2017, 2018, and 2019. The contract guaranteed him $15.25 million. However, Tabata lost his job in 2011 and could never earn the position back, despite good contact rates, as he added weight, lost his speed, but he was not able to generate more power with his additional size.

Coming into the game on the 20th of June, Tabata was hitting .313 as Polanco’s primary backup in right field. Even with his reduced speed, Tabata had a nose for making contact, which made him a good choice for this role. He showed that skill in this plate appearance, fouling off the first two pitches before Scherzer missed with two consecutive pitches, one a slider that bit down and in, but the controversy came with a high fastball on the fourth pitch of the at bat. Tabata checked his swing, but his weak swing meant he committed the handle of the bat all the way through the zone as well as his body, but he was able to keep the barrel of the bat from completing the swing, leaving his plate appearance alive when many would have been rung up for a strikeout based on their body language.

It would not be the last controversial call of the plate appearance. Tabata fouled off three more pitches, leading Scherzer to go back to his slider that had led to two of his last three strikeouts in the game. It was well-placed, biting into the inside corner and likely to earn him a called third strike as it froze Tabata’s bat out of hand, but Tabata leaned forward and dropped his significant elbow guard toward the ball, causing the ball to barely glance off the protective wear. By rule, Tabata should have been out for leaning into a pitch, but instead, he was awarded first base, breaking up the perfect game with two outs in the ninth inning.

Scherzer got Josh Harrison to lightly pop out to Taylor in left field, and the no-hitter was complete. The Nationals celebrated on the field for what would be the first of two Scherzer no-hitters of the 2015 season, but there was still a feeling in the now-thick air that we all missed out on something special potentially, but yet in review, Scherzer’s game was the only time that a perfect game had been broken up with two outs in the 9th inning by a hit-by-pitch and still completed for a no-hitter in the game’s history. So we’d witnessed a first in the game’s history. Not a perfect game, but perfectly unique.

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My two youngest and I enjoying hot dogs while watching the College World Series

Coming into marriage, two values that my wife and I shared were experience and comfort working with those with mental illness (her mother has a diagnosed severe and persistent mental illness) and wanting to adopt. Due to family history of postpartum psychosis, my wife was very uncomfortable with the idea of natural children, so adoption was a comfortable way for her to grow a family.

Certainly, there were options to grow our family through adoption agencies that would have placed us with a mother who had an unwanted pregnancy, and we may have found one child at a time. However, my wife’s background in teaching and my background working in mental health and ministry led us both to the thought that there are plenty of children out there that needed a loving home and did not have that provided to them from birth. Each summer I worked security at a Christian music festival, and one of the security guys that worked the same shift as I did had been a foster parent for many years and adopted through the foster system. After spending time talking with him about the experience that he and his wife had in the process, my wife and I chose to pursue growing our family through foster care.

We were placed with three siblings as our second placement as foster parents, just six months into being certified for foster care. They were to be going to be eligible to be adopted, but parental rights had not yet been terminated - they were in process. The process was, as so many things in foster care are, unpredictable and filled with emotional trials. Along the way, we were blessed with another sibling pair, one of whom our Department of Social Services actually allowed us to adopt.

I first became a father when I adopted my now six-year-old daughter in December 2018 on her fifth birthday. We celebrate March 15 as our family adoption day as that was the day we finalized the adoption of the three siblings who had been in our home for over two years at that point.

Memorial Day of 2017, I took the three siblings to their first MLB game. We ended up seeing a major league first as the Houston Astros completed an amazing comeback that day against the Minnesota Twins. Since, we’ve been able to attend the College World Series in Omaha as a family and return to watch my favorite team, the Atlanta Braves, take two of three from the Twins in a clash of first-place teams in August 2019.

Their Easter baskets this year included a pair of packs of baseball cards, something I’ve used to help teach the game to them. Like most, they enjoy the thrill of opening packs, but I take that a step further, allowing them to pick their favorite card from the pack and I pick one player from the pack and I tell them about both. For Christmas, the oldest of the two (aged seven and eight) got their own scorebooks so they could learn to keep score.

The game that my great-grandma, my grandpa, coaches, and dozens of other important people in my life have breathed into my life is now something I get to pass down to another generation. My four children each have a background of childhood trauma, and they each view the world through a different set of eyes due to their experience of that trauma. That can mean a breakdown while trying to explain the meaning of a 6-4-3 double play for reasons that a five-year-old simply cannot express quite yet, but the love of the game remains.

A game made perfect through its imperfections is the perfect fit for our family perfectly molded through imperfect life circumstances. It’s not perfect, but it’s perfection.

My kids at the Braves/Twins game in August 2019