It's really quite simple. Catch a perfect game: get a fancy watch.
Susan Slusser, the San Francisco Chronicle's A's beat writer, gives a baseball-mad world a beautiful moment that will restore your faith in humanity—or faith that ace pitchers can still have some class.
Yes, that is Oakland A's backstop John Jaso sporting some mighty expensive hardware on his wrist. It's all thanks to a man who pitches for the enemy.
Jaso may be playing for a division rival this season, but Felix Hernandez apparently never forgot the best game he ever pitched and the man who caught it.
Back in August, Jaso and King Felix teamed up for a brilliant battery that would give the Mariners their first perfect game in franchise history.
Fast-forward to this season and Hernandez is opening up the season in Oakland and is tasked with pitching against his old catcher.
As CBS Sports reports, Hernandez giveth and then Hernandez taketh away, because the Mariners ace threw seven-plus innings, allowing just three hits and punching out eight in a Seattle 2-0 win.
Not that Jaso was content to merely get a fancy Rolex on the day. He also managed to break up a no-hitter in the fourth inning:
Jaso, traded by the Mariners to their division rival during the offseason, popped out on the second pitch he saw in the first before his fourth-inning double. Then in the sixth, he struck out swinging to end a 10-pitch at-bat and 22-pitch inning for Hernandez.
About 90 minutes before first pitch, Hernandez had a Rolex watch delivered from a clubhouse employee to Jaso, quite the thank-you gift for his part in the ace right-hander's perfecto.
"He broke up the no-hitter," Hernandez said. "I was going to say, `Dude, what time is it?"'
Sure, Jaso got a hit and a Rolex, but King Felix gets the last laugh with the win and a strikeout in the sixth.
Felix Hernandez shows that he is pure class both on and off the bump. Not that Jaso will ever forget that magical game, but if he ever does, he can just check the time.
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