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CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) I’m jaded about big-time sports. A college football season has just started where some quarterbacks are making a million dollars… far more than the graduate assistants who are supposed to be teaching them chemistry.
No, my favorite story comes from the minor leagues of baseball.
The players who are going through the final week of the season are the left-overs… they are the ones who were not called up by their respective big league clubs.
32-year-old pitcher Thomas Pannone is too old to be a rookie. He’s bummed around the minor leagues for 12 seasons. No major league team considers him a prospect. He made an emergency appearance for the Brewers earlier this summer. It didn’t go particularly well, he gave up 2 runs in 3 innings. In August he was designated for assignment, any team that wanted him could have him. No one did. He cleared waivers and the Brewers sent him to their Triple-A team in Nashville. His three minor league starts in August were awful, with an earned run average above 10.
September arrived and Thomas Pannone was probably pitching his final professional games. Guys like him get cut at the end of the season. He pitched well in his first outing earlier this month – 4 scoreless innings. And he was named as the Nashville Sounds starting pitcher on Labor Day against the Durham Bulls; perhaps the last start of his baseball career.
And then something magical happened. The aging lefty that no one wanted was unhittable last Monday. He threw a perfect game… 27 batters up, 27 batters down. 94 pitches. An afternoon of perfection.
What happened on Monday in Nashville probably doesn’t change Thomas Pannone’s career. He’s already shown that he isn’t good enough to pitch in the big leagues. But I’m reminded that anyone who earns a paycheck to play baseball is extraordinary. And someday when Thomas Pannone is asked about his career, he can say one afternoon in the fall, I was perfect. It will be a wonderful story to tell.
Chris Conley
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