Almost Perfect

With two outs in the ninth inning the first-base umpire erroneously called the Cleveland Indians’ Jason Donald safe on a close play at first base preventing Detroit’s Armando Galarraga becoming the 20th pitcher, and third in the last four weeks, to throw a perfect game.

There has never been three perfect games thrown in one year and now there were almost three after the first third of the season. Perfection like truth has three levels: lips, mouth and breath. Similarly a perfect game in baseball requires the pitcher, the players and the umpires all to be perfect.

The idea of perfection seduces the human spirit because perfect is whole; wholeness in Hebrew is termed Shalom/Peace. Seeing perfection in any part of life brings peace to the world. The public is infuriated at the official who was imperfect in his call and later apologized, but the players understand the game is one of perfection.

The game of baseball is metaphoric to life on earth where God pitches and we catch, but there always seems something between the person and God trying to hit the thing away and score a run against us; there are errors and bad officiating–there is the home team advantage and there are times you are away.

The Cabalistic Tree of Life can be drawn out to look like a baseball diamond; the batter, the tenth player who turns towards the other nine is a perfect replica of how the Ten Sefirot function.