It's history. ESPN tracks it as "Pursuit of Perfection." Here at the Globe, we're thinking of new ways to describe the perfect team. It'll be commemorated on Globe Store coffee mugs and T-shirts after Super Bowl XLII in Glendale, Ariz., in early February.
Nadia Comaneci earned the first perfect gymnastics scores at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. The 1985-86 Celtics were almost perfect at home. They settled for 48-1 (Portland got 'em on a Sunday afternoon). Mike Mussina was perfect on a Sunday night at Fenway until Jurassic Carl Everett broke it up with two out in the ninth.
"Citizen Kane," "Casablanca," and "Godfathers" I and II can all make a case for perfect. Ditto for the Sistine Chapel, the Pieta, and the Mona Lisa. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is perfect because of its imperfection.
Today is the day some think we'll witness perfectus interruptus at Gillette Stadium. New England was fiercely challenged by Philadelphia and Baltimore in the past two weeks, and the Patriots were downright lucky to escape with a win against the Ravens last Monday. And now they are facing the toughest defense in the NFL. In a short week. And Bill Belichick accidentally admitted that his team is "tired."
Perfect doesn't come along very often. Bob Beamon's long jump at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City was perfect. Rollie Massimino's strategy against Georgetown in the 1985 NCAA basketball final was close to perfect. Same with Muhammad Ali's rope-a-dope game plan against young George Foreman in Zaire in 1974.
A collision of natural forces made for the Perfect Storm in the Northeast in 1991. Dome-bellied David Wells pitched a perfect game while hungover in May of 1998, then titled his autobiography, "Perfect I'm Not." In 1985, John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis teamed up in movie titled "Perfect." Perfect it was not.
