Buehrle Adds Gold Glove To Stellar 2009

For a 30-year-old pitcher with a fastball that can only rarely be described as "fast," Mark Buehrle had a pretty good season, huh?

So now give the man a hand -- and a Golden Glove to go on it.

The Gold Glove caps off an insane 2009 for Buerhle.

Of course, there was the July 23 perfect game, only the 16th in the history of Major League Baseball. Then there was the following game, in which Buerhle pitched no-hit baseball to the Twins before eventually yielding a hit late, stacking a nearly perfect effort on top of a legendarily perfect one.

Then there was Mark Buehrle Day in Illinois, which Governor Pat Quinn declared on July 31.

True, the Gold Glove is easily the least important of these accomplishments (even if Buehrle claims otherwise). The writers who vote for award Gold Gloves tend to vote more for offense and name recognition than they do by any sort of recognizable baseball metric; Derek Jeter won the Gold Glove for shortstop, and most baseball observers agree Jeter is well past his fielding prime.

But the Gold Glove is still an accomplishment, one Buerhle deserves well enough. So congrats, Mark, and enjoy it. Few people get the have this much fun in a lifetime. You did it in one year.

Eamonn Brennan is a Chicago-based writer, editor and blogger. He is the editor of Yahoo! Sports's college basketball blog The Dagger and a contributor to Inside The Hall. Follow him at his personal site, eamonnbrennan.com, or on Twitter.