This was a night where the big picture and the little picture merge together in the same storyline. It’s about the game in isolation — the best pitching performance I’ve ever watched. But it’s also improved by the larger story, the idea of Matt Cain showing up in San Francisco a couple of years after his prom, morphing into one of the better pitchers in the game, winning a championship, and sticking around for a decade or two.

Which is all to say, Cain pitching a perfect game — and doing it at home in front of a raucous crowd — is just about the best story imaginable.