Domingo German pitched a perfect game for the Yankees, but he's been far from that overall
New York Yankees pitcher Domingo German is doused with ice water after his perfect game against the Oakland Athletics on June 28, 2023. Credit: AP/Scott Strazzante
It’s OK to not feel the normal elation. It’s very OK, too, to marvel at one of baseball’s rarest feats.
We tend to think of perfection in absolutes and, in the most essential way, Domingo German’s Wednesday night was perfect.
He faced 27 batters and retired them all. He was bailed out just once — on a diving stop by Anthony Rizzo. And, in baseball’s infinite unpredictability, he did it six days after allowing 10 runs over 3 1/3 innings. It was only the fourth perfect game in the Yankees’ storied history and the 24th in Major League Baseball.
It was art — a masterpiece painted by the majestic strokes of an unhittable curveball, its colors getting more vibrant as the A’s continued to make their sad, solemn trudge back to the home dugout.
But we don’t live in a two-dimensional world.
We can enjoy the beauty of German’s incredible accomplishment while still allowing room for nuance, and for the fact that there is nothing perfect about this player. He served one of the longest domestic violence suspensions in league history and, less damningly, was one of the three pitchers this year dinged for potentially using a foreign substance.
Often, people bristle when you bring up things like this. It’s a very human reaction, and understandable when you consider that we all crave uncomplicated joy. Throwing a perfect game is very, very cool, and wanting to bask in its unexpected glow is a natural byproduct of that. Add to it, too, that being a baseball fan can be frustrating — even painful — and it’s moments like Wednesday's that make it all worth it.
Athletic excellence, though, isn’t equal to moral excellence, and it doesn’t have to be.
German was suspended for half a season after reportedly slapping his then-girlfriend (now wife) during CC Sabathia’s charity event in 2019. According to a story by The Athletic, which cited multiple league sources, the abuse continued when the two went home and his girlfriend, likely terrified, reached out to a teammate and his wife for help. The situation didn't deescalate until the two came to the girlfriend's aid at German's home.
How bad do things have to be for a person to hit his partner in full view of his work colleagues? How much worse did it get for that partner to go home with her assailant but then decide that the physical violence was so bad, only a desperate phone call to a teammate’s wife could help her?
Baseball is all about stats, right? So how about these numbers: One in four women and one in seven men are victims of “severe physical violence” by an intimate partner, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. The overwhelming majority of female victims of intimate partner violence — over 76% — were previously victimized by the same person.
Do you know what happened when I Iooked up those stats on the hotline website? A pop-up showed up warning me that my internet history could be tracked, even if I deleted it. It gave me a toll-free number to call if I thought I was in danger and noted that there was a red “exit” button on the top corner of my screen, just in case an abuser walked into the room. When you hit it, the page reverts to a blank Google search page.
German said he felt incredible pressure when he was three outs away, and no doubt, he did. But that’s not real fear. Real fear is barricading a door so you won’t get hurt. Real fear is a big red exit button on the corner of a website, because even the hint of calling someone to account for his or her actions could be a death sentence. Real fear is accusing a valuable asset of hurting you when you know he's part of a multi-billion dollar monopolistic empire.
None of this is to say that German is irredeemable. For all we know, he could have done significant personal work in the intervening years. He could have apologized, and it's even probable he did considering the two later married. He could have committed to never acting that way again. He could have worked toward making amends. I genuinely hope all those things happened, both for his alleged victim, but also for himself, because we all deserve a chance to be better than who we were.
But we don’t make perfect games more perfect by pretending that none of the other stuff happened.
And don’t worry: Lest you think I’m being too harsh, rest assured that there’ve been plenty of other stories marveling at German’s accomplishment. He’s an inconsistent pitcher battling through a career fraught with injury. He’s got a lifetime 4.40 ERA and 31-26 record over parts of six seasons. In a lot of ways, what he did Wednesday illustrates what makes baseball so breathtakingly beautiful. On any given day, even the most unlikely player can touch magic.
So, enjoy the moment. But also enjoy it for what it is: For nine innings, Domingo German was perfect. But for nine innings only.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.