In light of Roy Halladay’s recent perfect game, I decided it would be interesting to rank the top five pitchers of all time. The catch: they must have breathed in the rarified air of the perfect game.
So Nolan Ryan out…uh, Dallas Braden in?
There have only been 20 perfect games in the history of Major League Baseball. This does limit my options for these rankings somewhat, but also should be an indication of how incredibly difficult it is to throw nine innings of perfection.
By definition, it is impossible to compare perfect items. Keep in mind that this is a ranking of the best pitchers of all time who pitched a perfect game, not a ranking of the best perfect games.
If I were attempting that, Braden’s “Stick It, A-Rod”” game may have made it. Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series would have easily topped the list.
Disclaimers: Credit goes to www.baseball-reference.com for the pitcher stats and www.wikipedia.com for the list of perfect game pitchers and backstories.
All photos used on this slideshow that weren’t directly made available by Bleacher Report are not, to the best of my knowledge, subject to copyright restrictions.