Felix Hernandez pitches a perfect game for Seattle Mariners

SEATTLE -- His arms outstretched to the sky, about to be swallowed by anxious teammates that ignored him for most of nine innings, Felix Hernandez finally conquered the pursuit of perfection he's chased since his debut as a baby-faced 19-year-old with uncontrollable curly hair and a hat that never sat straight.

No more nights of wondering whether this would be the moment he twirled a historic gem.

King Felix finally has his crowning achievement.

"It was always in my mind, every game. 'I need to throw a perfect game.' For every pitcher I think it's in their mind," Hernandez said. "Today it happened and it's something special. I don't have any words to explain this. This is pretty amazing. It doesn't happen every day."

Hernandez pitched the Seattle Mariners' first perfect game and the 23rd in baseball history, overpowering the Tampa Bay Rays in a brilliant 1-0 victory yesterday.

The 2010 AL Cy Young Award winner has never hid his desire for pitching perfection. For a franchise on its way to an 11th straight season without a playoff appearance, Hernandez is the one constant keeping fans interested in Mariners baseball.

He's revered in the Pacific Northwest, not only for his performance on the mound, but for his willingness to stay. When he could have waited and sought a bigger payday elsewhere, Hernandez signed an extension in 2010 that will keep him in Seattle through the 2014 season.

So when the "King's Court" of yellow-shirted fans in the left-field corner began chanting "Let's Go Felix!" to start the eighth inning, it spread through the entire stadium. The crescendo of screams and yells finally reached its pinnacle at 3:02 p.m. PDT when Hernandez threw a called third strike past Sean Rodriguez to ignite the celebration.

Riding down in a crowded elevator after the game, Seattle general manager Jack Zduriencik jokingly held his cellphone to his ear and said "no, we're not trading Felix."

It was the third perfect game this season -- a first -- joining gems by the White Sox's Philip Humber against the Mariners in April and the Giants' Matt Cain versus the Astros in June. More than half of all perfectos -- 12 -- have come in the last 25 seasons.

For the Rays, it was an all-too-familiar feeling. This was the third time in four seasons they had a perfect game pitched against them, following efforts by Dallas Braden in 2010 and Mark Buehrle in 2009.

Hernandez's dominance got stronger as the game progressed. He cruised for five innings, then pitched through tough at-bats, delay tactics and the mounting pressure of perfection to close out the gem.

Hernandez struck out 12, including eight in the final four innings. He struck out the side in the sixth, did it again in the eighth and hit as high as 95 mph in the ninth. "It was special. He had special stuff," manager Eric Wedge said. "But Felix is so consistently good that when he does take it up to another level which we've seen him do through the course of the year, you never know how it's going to turn out."