I’ve seen a lot of big-league baseball games in person. Maybe 500? No, that sounds low, at my age. Maybe 700. I was never a traveling ball writer, but I covered the Angels for a few years when I went to nearly all their home games, and between drop-in games during my time as a columnist, Dodgers games as a kid, Angels games (closer, cheaper, emptier) as a teen … well, a lot of games.

But I have never seen a no-hitter.

So imagine my excitement to see … a perfect game, here in Abu Dhabi.

OK, not in person. OK, not even on TV.

I saw Dallas Braden retire the final three batters of the 27 consecutive Tampa Bay Rays batters he set down … via the MLB GameCast that espn.com puts up for all MLB games.

It was oddly compelling.

We were sitting in the Teeny Apartment in Abu Dhabi, about 2:30 a.m. local time, and Leah saw on someone’s Facebook’s posting that a guy with the Oakland Athletics had a perfect game through eight.

So we each went to the espn site, and pulled up the GameCast and watched the pitches come in (ball, strike, foul, ball, etc.) and the fat white dot that represents a moving ball in play. We sat through the bottom of the eighth, waiting for the ninth.

I was doing sort of a running commentary. Like most people with a life, Leah had no idea how the GameCast quite worked. I was explaining it to her (mugshots at the top are the batter the the pitcher, etc.) … while Dallas Braden was facing the Rays. First guy, Willy Aybar, popped to first. Two outs to go.

I was telling her how rare a perfect game is, even though MLB had one in 2004 (Randy Johnson) and another last year (Mark Buerhle). Only 18 perfect games in 130-some years of baseball.And I already was looking at the wikipedia entry on perfect games … before the game was over. Hey, wait: I could jinx the guy. “This was worse than talking about it; I was researching it.

So, one out, top nine … and Dioner Navarro up. Dodgers fans remember him as the hot prospect who turned out to be severely underwhelming. As I recall, he got hurt in, what, 2006,  opening the door to Russell Martin, who has been catching ever since. Dioner ended up in Tampa where he pretty much continued not to hit.

“No hitter, no hitter!” I chattered. And Leah said, “No kidding; I’m looking at his stats.”

At that point I was almost nervous. Really. “Perfect game! Wow. Gettin’ close now.”

Navarro worked the count to 2-and-1, as I recall, and I said, “For goodness sakes, don’t walk this clown; chuck it down the middle.” Which Braden may have done because GameCast told us that Navarro lined out to left field. A pitch to hit. Good thing it was Dioner up there.

Two outs. One man to get. Gabe Kapler. A fairly good hitter in his day (which was about 4-5 years ago). Some pop. Decent eye.  He also got to a 2-1 count, I’m thinking … before grounding to shortstop. Nice high hop for Cliff Pennington (you can see it on the “watch highlights” tab on the link to the box), who didn’t seem vaguely nervous as he scooped it up and pegged it to Daric Barton at first.

Perfect game! Mayhem in Abu Dhabi!

OK. No really. Though Leah did say, “That was kinda cool.”

Barton did one of those fist pumps with the fist inside the glove. The Athletics ran on the field. Braden did a fist pump, too, except with his throwing hand. He was a guy I was barely aware of until last week,  when he nearly got in a fight with Aled Rodriguez when the latter ran over the mound after grounding out. Braden was ticked; A-Rod said big deal, and who are you, anyway?

Who is he? The guy who just threw the 19th perfect game in MLB history.

Here is the box. Note that nine Tampa Bay guys went 3000. I wonder how often that has happened. I bet in nearly every perfect game, a pinch-hitter was involved. The one perfect game I listened to, Sandy Koufax against the Cubs in 1965, Koufax got pinch-hitter Harvey Kuehn to end it. I remember where I was, for that one. In the kitchen of my parents’ home in Long Beach. We had a radio …

I imagine all the ball fans back home saw this thing in real time … and not on a computer simulation with glowing dots to represent baserunners. Espn probably cut in from whatever it had going on.

So, yes. Pretty cool. Bad thing about being here is … no ball. Good thing about it is that I we are so familiar with the game, we can invent our own details. We can “see” it inside our heads.

Pretty exciting. Yes. Our first Abu Dhabi perfect game. On GameCast, the Next Best Thing to hearing it on radio, which is the Next Best Thing to seeing it on TV, which is the Next Best Thing to watching it in person. You take what you can get, the other side of the world.