Perfect Game

Two county pitchers combined on a perfect game yesterday to lead Arundel past Frederick, 2-0, in the finals of the Babe Ruth 14-year-old state tournament in Clinton.Severna Park resident Bill McGuire pitched the first five innings before giving way to Odenton's Russ Allen, who finished up with two innings. The duo had six strikeouts.McGuire, who pitched two innings the previous day, was forced to leave yesterday's contest because of a league rule prohibiting a player from throwing more than seven innings in two games.

Westminster businessman Ellwood "Bunky" Bartlett is like a lot of gamers - he knows what he likes and doesn't like in his games. The difference between Bartlett and most gamers is that in 2007, he won the Mega Millions jackpot, clearing roughly $27 million after taxes. After years of marauding through massive online multi-player games like "World of Warcraft," "Rift" and "EverQuest," Bartlett is embarking on his own quest: to create his dream game. Now all he needs is a mere $1.1 million to get started.

It was a good idea Phil Rogers Chicago Tribune Good baseball is always about doing what's called for in the situation. Evan Longoria's bunt attempt in the middle of Dallas Braden's perfect game on Sunday was a good idea at the time, and well within anyone's understanding of baseball etiquette. Longoria was leading off the fifth inning, with Tampa Bay trailing 4-0. While he's a power hitter, the four-run deficit meant the Rays needed a big inning. He was only thinking about getting on base to spark that when he tried to bunt Braden's first pitch for a hit. He fouled it off and would go on to strike out. Afterward, Braden called the try "intelligent," and he was right.

Right around now, the know-it-alls and armchair quarterbacks are busy whining that Billy Cundiff lost the AFC title game with his final missed field goal, or at the very least lost the chance to tie the game and possibly win. ("Left out," Jan. 23). This is nonsense. The whole team lost. Literally. Every pass under- or overthrown, every fumble, interception, sack and, yes, missed field goal contributed to the loss. And if the other team was scoring it was because they were allowed to move down the field into field goal or touchdown position.

Curt Ludwig and Tony Dorsey bowl at Brunswick recreation centers in Howard County, and now they have another thing in common. Each owns a perfect game.Ludwig started bowling in 1958 with duckpins, as did so many of the Baltimore-born bowlers, before switching to tenpins. Still residing in Baltimore with his wife, Donna, he bowls in two leagues at Brunswick Normandy, the Wednesday Anytime Funtime and the Friday Friendship.If you bowl at Normandy lanes you know Curt and Donna; Curt works there as a mechanic and in the pro shop and Donna works the control counter.

Not much seems to bother Amy Jakubowski these days.Chesapeake's ace windmiller was one pitch away from throwing her second no-hitter of the season yesterday when Old Mill's Amy McKenzie blooped a singleinto shallow right field, foiling her perfect game.One batter later, the top-seeded Cougars sealed the 4-0, Class 4ARegion IV semifinal victory over the fourth-seeded Patriots.While most pitchers would stew over the one that got away, Jakubowski smiled a smile that stretched from foul line to foul line and queried, "A one-hitter isn't bad, is it?"

Bowl America Glen Burnie has been sitting in the heart of Glen Burnie for many years. A lot of fine scores have been posted in the 48-lane tenpin house. It would be difficult to count the 800 sets and 300 games by men over the years.What about the women?"I'm pretty sure that she's the first one to do it," said Chuck Kelly, manager of Bowl America Glen Burnie. "I know that I don't remember any women doing it.""She" is Bec Hebler of Pasadena, and "it" was a perfect game.Last month, Hebler opened her Thursday league with a 212 game; she finished with a 181. But that middle game was the big one."

Kirk Janney, born and raised in Harford County, began bowling tenpins as a teen-ager; now 22, he carries a 208 average in three leagues -- Monday and Tuesday at Bel Air Bowl, Thursday at Fair Lanes Edgewood.Last month he had a night to remember."I wasn't doing anything different that night," Janney said. "My first game wasn't even up to my average."That first game was a 198; his last game of the three-game set was a 215. But that middle game was a beauty.Twelve strikes for his third career perfect game.

At Bowl America Reisterstown recently, a Young America Bowling Alliance member came within a whisker of a perfect game.Vlad Ioffe, a 19-year-old freshman at UMBC, fired a 299 game.Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and brought to America at 6, Ioffe started bowling about six years ago.A bio-chemistry major who plans to become a doctor, Ioffe uses a 15-pound Purple Hammer."I'm averaging 165 right now," said Ioffe, who lives in Owings Mills. "But that day I was having a tough time getting lined up."

TRENTON, N.J. -- Left-hander Rick Forney pitched a seven-inning perfect game to lead the Bowie Baysox past the Trenton Thunder, 8-0, in the second game of an Eastern League doubleheader last night.In the first game, Tony Clark's run-scoring single in the bottom of the 10th inning gave Trenton a 3-2 victory.Forney (11-6), from Annapolis, struck out five. Trenton's Evan Pratte grounded out to first baseman Jack Voigt to end the game.The Thunder came close to breaking up the perfect game in the seventh when Justin Mashore hit a bouncer inches foul down the third base line.

Despite their first four-game sweep in more than a year, one that culminated with Thursday's 6-1 victory against the reeling Minnesota Twins, the Orioles seem to understand life isn't about to get any easier as they return home Friday. They're scheduled to play five games in four days against the mighty New York Yankees in a series that might be interrupted by Hurricane Irene's rampage. They'll also be dealing with another type of storm, a swirling, emotional one that struck in the middle of Wednesday's game when news broke that MASN broadcaster, former Orioles pitching great and team executive Mike Flanagan had died -- and one that is sure to resurface again Friday as the city collectively mourns the loss of one of its favorite sons at Camden Yards.

In my last column, which I used to give a personal account of the North Harford baseball team's heartbreaking, 15-inning loss to La Plata in the 3A state semifinals, I broke one of my rules, that being to never label an athlete as "the best I've seen. " The reason I avoid such proclamations is that I've spent a relatively short time covering and analyzing Harford County sports, four full high school years and three seasons worth of IronBirds, and I'd like to get at least twice that much under my belt before I start sounding pompous.

Chespapeake-Anne Arundel's Megan Hyson was one pitch away from a perfect game in Tuesday's Class 4A state semifinals when Montgomery Blair's Emily Haislip drew a walk. Hyson briefly walked off the mound, collected herself and struck out the next batter, earning a no-hitter in the top-ranked Cougars' 8-0 victory. Hyson also went 4-for-4 with a home run, setting up a showdown against undefeated Urbana in Saturday's state championship at Maryland. "It was close, that's all you can ask for. A no-hitter was good enough," said Hyson, who will play at Georgetown next season.

North Carolina State-bound senior Emily Weiman proved again why she was The Baltimore Sun's All-Metro Player of the Year last year. Weiman went seven innings and struck out 14 in a perfect-game performance against host Mercy as No. 4 Archbishop Spalding (6-2) won, 7-0, on Wednesday. Weiman also had the only extra-base hit of the game, a two-run homer in the fourth inning. No. 2 Broadneck 12, South River 2: Right-hander Emilee Tslueger (2-0) struck out seven for the host Bruins (9-2)

PHILADELPHIA — No active big league starter had gone longer without pitching in the playoffs than the Phillies' Roy Halladay. So in Wednesday's opener of the National League Division Series, he more than made up for the wait, no-hitting the Cincinnati Reds in a 4-0 win. Halladay was masterful, retiring the first 14 Reds before walking Jay Bruce on a full-count pitch with two outs in the fifth inning. But that was all Cincinnati got as Halladay came within a pitch of his second perfect game of the season and the second perfect game in postseason history.

Heading into the 10th frame with a score of 270, Matthew Gasn knew what he needed to do to reach the perfect score all bowlers long for. Keeping his focus would be the key. All he had to do was approach these next three shots the way he did his first nine, which all resulted in strikes. And the 17-year-old did just that, rolling three flawless balls down the lane to complete his quest. But the experience didn't overwhelm Gasn; it was his eighth perfect game. "The first time I did it, it was pretty exciting.

While it was a first for many at McDonogh Friday, it wasn't for coach Al Poklemba. Top-ranked Calvert Hall's Andy Bair fired a perfect game at Poklemba's No. 6 Eagles winning, 3-0.Afterward, the Hall's veteran coach Joe "Snooky" Binder said Bair was the first pitcher to throw one for the Cardinals in his 23 years of coaching (six junior varsity, 17 varsity).A perfect game over seven innings is a rarity and even more startling when two powers such as Calvert Hall and McDonogh are playing."I told them it wasn't a first for me," said Poklemba.

At the start of the seventh inning, the Chesapeake softball team wasprotecting a 3-0 lead and appeared on the verge of avenging an earlier 4-3 extra-inning loss to Severna Park.More importantly, the Cougars' ace right-hander Amy Jakubowski was nearing her second career perfect game and her fifth victory in seven starts.Jakubowski held on for the 3-0 perfect-game win, but the final inning offered some tense moments and some ominous similarities to the first meeting. In that game, Jakubowski had a no-hitter going for five innings before getting rocked for a loss by the Falcons.

For whatever reason, some issues resonate louder with fans than people in the game. Expanded use of instant replay is one of those. While Jim Joyce's missed call costing Armando Galarraga a perfect game stirred cries for instant replay, there was little response from within the game. The internal apathy — or willingness to accept bad calls, if that's what it is — was similar to last fall, when general managers barely discussed replay after a postseason in which missed calls were a hot-button topic.