Thanks to a phone call from my father as I came home from work Tuesday night, I heard and saw the final two innings of Randy Johnson's perfect game (the "heard" part refers to me turning the volume on the TV set in the other room up high while I gave my daughter a bath).

Thanks to Johnson, the perfect game I attended 13 years ago is no longer the last perfect game in the National League.

Still, I've seen four no-hitters in person, including that Dennis Martinez perfect game in 1991, a game which was a double perfect game through five innings. In all, 15 of the 18 half-innings of that day were 1-2-3.

That was the weekend I had the luck of covering the Saturday Dodgers-Expos game for the Daily News, while others covered the nine-inning no-hitter by Mark Gardner Friday and Martinez on a Sunday. Still, I attended all three games. (Gardner lost his game in the 10th; I know MLB has since changed its rules to disavow its no-hitterness, but it was called a no-hitter when I saw it.)

A year before, I threw my sombrero to the sky in watching Fernando Valenzela twirl his no-hitter. And in 1994, I saw a most unlikely no-hit pitcher, Kent Mercker.

I had tickets to at least two other no-hitters, Ramon Martinez and Kevin Gross, but wasn't able to attend.