Alabaman wins million for virtual perfection

McGilberry got a big hug from his wife and a check for $1 million.

So much for the virtual world. McGilberry, 23, of Mobile, Ala., used Atlanta's Kenshin Kawakami of the Braves to record a perfect game -- allowing no batter to reach base -- against the Mets. McGilberry's entry, recorded on March 2, was then verified by 2K Sports and he was presented with that prize for winning the company's Perfect Game contest.

"We are going to pay off the house, get our finances in order," McGilberry said Wednesday on CBS' Early Show. "We are also going to start a family, which we had planned to do once our finances were together. They are just together sooner than we thought."

This was the big payoff touted by MLB2K10 cover athlete Evan Longoria as the Major League Baseball season started. In fact, Longoria was the first carrier of the news, tweeting the announcement and saying: "Seriously, that's a lot of cheese!"

"I actually heard that he just got married and he's finishing school," Longoria said Thursday. "Good for him. Somebody had to win it and I'm glad it was just an average Joe kind of guy and it's probably going to better his whole life."

Mike Rhinehart, senior product manager with 2K Sports, and Greg Thomas, president of 2K Sports, surprised McGilberry at home this week with a giant check to commemorate his achievement. McGilberry was at the door with a beaming smile.

McGilberry, a 401(k) record-keeper, is normally a "Halo" player on his Xbox 360, and we don't mean Angels. Not altogether unlike a "real" perfect game itself, this required practice, understanding of pitch selections and matchups . . . and some luck.

"Initially, I couldn't get it. After about five or six tries, it wasn't working for me. I couldn't get out of the fifth inning or sixth inning," McGilberry said. "Whenever I actually got to the seventh inning, I was thinking, 'I've made it this far. Why not just hit everybody one more time.'"

McGilberry was actually encouraged by his wife Katy to stay home and focus on his task at hand, but he went to work that day, anyway. Once he got home from the office, McGilberry immediately turned on his Xbox, planning to mash the controller until he was through with the challenge. He had signed up for the contest previously, and one requirement was that he videotape himself playing the game, for verification purposes.

An hour and a half later, McGilberry had achieved what Longoria challenged him to do.

There were some moments during his perfect game when he had doubts. It was like when Dewayne Wise crashed into the wall in center and somersaulted with the catch to keep Mark Buehrle's perfect game alive last July in Chicago.

"The very first batter hit the ball up the middle off my pitcher. It deflected to the shortstop, who threw him out," McGilberry said. "One guy in the eighth inning hit the ball to the warning track."

There are a lot of MLB2K10 players right now who are thinking: "I could have won that $1 million." Maybe someone will realize now that these things really do happen, and perhaps someone will win the $3 million in the MLB.com Beat the Streak contest by taking just a little bit of time each day to pursue it, like McGilberry did with MLB2K10.

McGilberry went to 3-2 on only one batter. He said his plan was to pitch to the corners, keep it low and not throw hard. Lots of groundouts that way.

"When I got the final out, I was waiting for something to pop up," McGilberry said. "I kept waiting for the game announcers to say something. I was worried I had screwed something up."

That is when he saw the confirmation code appear. McGilberry promptly called Katy. He said he had come up with the idea of entering the contest in the first place, "but I had to get my wife's permission first. I had to talk to her about it and see."

He said 2K Sports called him Sunday afternoon and said they were coming over "to check out my Xbox, because I was one of the finalists. They had to make sure I had the Xbox."

The rules of the contest stated that the game had to be recorded with a timestamp and that entries would not be judged until the contest ended May 1. 2K Sports received several dozen submissions but said McGilberry's was the first to meet all the criteria to win the $1 million.

McGilberry said he has not thrown a perfect game since the big one. "I've tried several times," he said. That is pretty much par for the course when it comes to perfect games. Larsen's career was never nearly the same after the 1956 gem.

Whatever McGilberry does on his Xbox from now on doesn't really matter. He got the serious cheese before anyone else.