Kernels aren't worth a million this night

Larry McCall had never been to a baseball game at the newer Veterans Memorial Stadium. Neither had his mom, Martha.

But when the pair heard about the Cedar Rapids Kernels' "Million Dollar Monday" promotion, the 30-mile trip from their hometown in Mechanicsville didn't seem too far.

"I listened about it all last week on the radio," Larry McCall said. "They were giving away tickets, and I won some."

The McCalls were among a host of fans at the Kernels-Burlington game - which Burlington won, 2-1 - who signed up to be part of this "perfect" promotion, which was sponsored in part by Perfect Game USA baseball club/scouting service of Cedar Rapids.

Had Kernels starting pitcher Manuarys Correa thrown a complete-game perfect game (that's getting all 27 outs consecutively), someone would have won $1 million. A combined perfect game would have been worth $50,000.

"It's a great promotion," said Kernels season-ticket holder Tom Kelly, who also signed up to try and win a cool million. "Obviously the odds are stacked against something like this. But it'd be great to see it go about six or seven innings."

According to Yahoo.com, the odds of a perfect game are 90,000-to-1. Alas, Correa walked the third Burlington hitter, Nick Van Stratten, on a high-and-tight fastball. All was not lost, considering there were one-dollar hot dogs, soda and beer the rest of the night.

 Before the game, Kernels Manager Bill Mosiello was asked what he would do if Correa had a perfect game going late and had a high pitch count. He simply laughed.

"I'll tell you what," he said. "I'll give you a million dollars if we throw a perfect game. But if we don't, you give me a thousand dollars."

Correa (2-4) wasn't perfect but was good enough to win a lot of games. He went six innings, giving up six hits, including back-to-back home runs in the second inning to Jose Bonilla and Chase Fontaine.

The Kernels (33-24) lost their fourth straight, dropping two games behind first-place Kane County in the Midwest League's Western Division. Cedar Rapids is two games up on Peoria and Clinton for second place and the final first-half playoff spot in the division. It has 13 games left in the first half, including four at home with Kane County and Clinton.