Multiple Career No-Hitters Seven Nolan Ryan, California (AL), 1973 (2), 1974, 1975; Houston (NL), 1981; Texas (AL), 1990, 1991 Four Sandy Koufax, Los Angeles (NL), 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965 Three Bob Feller, Cleveland (AL), 1940, 1946, 1951 Cy Young, Cleveland (NL), 1897; Boston (AL), 1904, 1908 Larry Corcoran, Chicago (NL), 1880, 1882, 1884 Two Randy Johnson, Seattle (AL), 1990; Arizona (NL), 2004 Hideo Nomo, Los Angeles (NL), 1996; Boston (AL), 2001 Bob Forsch, St. Louis (NL), 1978, 1983 Steve Busby, Kansas City (AL), 1973, 1974 Bill Stoneman, Montreal (NL), 1969, 1972 Ken Holtzman, Chicago (NL), 1969, 1971 Don Wilson, Houston (NL), 1967, 1969 Jim Maloney, Cincinnati (NL), 1965, 1969 Jim Bunning, Detroit (AL), 1958; Philadelphia (NL), 1964 Warren Spahn, Milwaukee (NL), 1960, 1961 Carl Erskine, Brooklyn (NL), 1952, 1956 Virgil Trucks, Detroit (AL), 1952 (2) Allie Reynolds, New York (AL), 1951 (2) Johnny Vander Meer, Cincinnati (NL), 1938 (2) Dutch Leonard, Boston (AL), 1916, 1918 Addie Joss, Cleveland (AL), 1908, 1910 Frank Smith, Chicago (AL), 1905, 1908 Christy Mathewson, New York (NL), 1901, 1905 Ted Breitenstein, St. Louis (AA), 1891; Cincinnati (NL), 1898 Al Atkinson, Philadelphia (AA), 1884, 1886 Adonis Terry, Brooklyn (AA), 1886, 1888 Pud Galvin, Buffalo (NL), 1880, 1884

ATLANTA -- Hardly 30 minutes after the second-most thrilling game in his team's ridiculously young history had concluded, Joe Garagiola Jr., the affable general manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks, had yet to realize the hugeness of the evening. He held in his hand a couple of tickets to the game and, like he often does after his team plays, was about to chuck them into the garbage. He caught himself just in time.

"I think I'll keep these," he said with a laugh to no one in particular. "Yup. I think I'll just hold onto these."

Yeah. This one was a keeper.

Fourteen years, 410 starts and a couple of teams after no-hitting the Detroit Tigers as an up-and-comer with the Seattle Mariners, 40-year-old Arizona lefty Randy Johnson did himself one better. In a game between two scuffling teams in front of a crowd of just more than 23,000 at Turner Field, Johnson became the oldest pitcher in major league history to throw a perfect game, beating the Atlanta Braves 2-0 Tuesday night.

Twenty-seven up, twenty-seven down ... and no doubt about it. The hardest-hit balls didn't make the warning track, and there were only a couple of them. The closest thing to a hit was a dribbler to shortstop Alex Cintron, who threw out Braves pitcher Mike Hampton by a half step.

Johnson, nicknamed the Big Unit, struck out 13 and plowed through the decimated Braves' lineup in 117 awesomely effective pitches. He threw an astonishing 18 of them at 97 mph or better, including five that clocked 98 mph and one that popped in at 99. He mixed in his deadly trademark slider with the fastball and threw in a handful of split-fingered fastballs just for good measure.

Of the 27 hitters he faced, he threw a first-pitch ball to only 10 of them, and he went to a three-ball count only once.

Perhaps the most striking part of the evening, though, was not the game itself -- it was just the 17th perfect game in baseball history, counting Don Larsen's in the 1956 World Series -- but the utter coolness with which Johnson handled it all. After uncorking a 98 mph fastball that pinch hitter Eddie Perez swung through for the final out of the evening, Johnson pumped his left arm, pointed into the air with his gloved hand and waited as 27-year-old catcher Robby Hammock went bonkers for the both of them.

"That's great," Johnson chuckled, watching replays of the final out for the first time in a nearly deserted clubhouse an hour or so after the game had ended. "I'm happy that he's happy."

Johnson long has been one of the most focused, most intense and most hard-to-read pitchers in baseball. His game-day focus is legendary. The five-time Cy Young Award winner talks little and shows even less emotion when he pitches. And on days he doesn't pitch, he's always controlled. That made his blowup last week, a day after losing a frustrating 1-0 game to Tom Glavine and the Mets, even more newsworthy.

Tuesday night, though, he was never in more control. As Hammock bounced out from behind the plate and barreled into his arms, Johnson gently smiled, looked down at the young catcher and patted him on the shoulder, shortly before the rest of the Diamondbacks swarmed the 6-foot-10 pitcher near the mound.

"I just remember telling him 'You were perfect! You were perfect! You were perfect!' " said Hammock, who grew up less than 100 miles down the road in Macon, Ga. "It's going to be hard coming down from this one."

Johnson's reaction Tuesday was markedly different from his no-hitter in '90. Then, in the middle of his third full year in the bigs and coming off a 7-13 season in which he was traded from the Expos to the Mariners, the 26-year-old Johnson thrust both arms into the air and practically frolicked with Mariners catcher Scott Bradley at midfield. "I was a very young pitcher," Johnson said, "who didn't have any idea of where the ball was going."

Johnson has been through a lot since then. His midseason departure from Seattle in 1998. A half-season pit stop in Houston. The Cy Youngs, including four straight with the Diamondbacks (1999-2002). A thrilling World Series win in Arizona in 2001, in which he came in as a reliever and was the winning pitcher in one of the most thrilling Game 7s in World Series history and the watershed moment for the 7-year-old franchise.

Things had turned sour for Johnson recently, though. He had knee surgery last season and went 6-8, his first losing season since 1989. Many wondered if he was over the hill. He struggled in his first two starts this year.

But he had started to quiet those critics during the past half-dozen games, even as he became increasingly frustrated. In his six starts before Tuesday's masterpiece, Johnson had been almost unhittable. Opponents had a .141 batting average against him. He had a 1.98 ERA, with 55 strikeouts in 41 innings. Yet his record was only 3-3.

Tuesday he took out any frustrations he had on the beat-up Braves, who were playing without regulars Marcus Giles and Rafael Furcal. Johnson struck out four of the first six batters he faced, though catcher Johnny Estrada took him to a full-count during an 11-pitch at-bat that ended in a strikeout in the second inning. In the fourth, a slider got a little high on Johnson and Julio Franco pounded it to center field. Steve Finley camped under it with no problem.

In the fifth, Estrada and J.D. Drew both took Johnson to right field on fly balls that Danny Bautista had to track down, but both fell short of the warning track. Hampton squibbed a grounder to short in the sixth, but Cintron charged the ball and nabbed Hampton at first.

Nothing else was even close.

"Everything was as good as it could possibly be," said Arizona manager Bob Brenly, who spent the last few innings superstitiously sitting in the same spot in the Diamondbacks dugout -- near the bat rack, strumming second baseman Matt Kata's bat with his knuckles before every Johnson pitch. "Everything he's done up to this point pales in comparison."

The significance of the night's work was not lost on Johnson, though you could hardly tell it by how he low-keyed it afterward. He continually mentioned the win, not the perfection, as the most important part of the night -- though getting back at those who wrote him off had to count for something.

"It wasn't bad for being 40 years old," Johnson told reporters in a postgame news conference, sneaking sips from a can of beer in between questions. "I think the emotion I showed is kind of distributed through my pitches. [Tuesday night], I was very level-headed and focused on what I had to do."

Even afterward, when most of his teammates had left the clubhouse and Johnson was watching Hammock bounce around on the replay, the big lefty was practically stoic.

"It'll all sink in as things go along," he said. "Let's be honest. You have to be lucky."

Still, as Johnson watched the big-screen television in the visitors' clubhouse after the game, seeing his sliders baffle the Braves and his fastballs blow right past them, it was clear that there was a lot more to Tuesday night's masterpiece than just luck. There was more to that performance than another notch in the win column.

It was about skill and determination and unbridled power. It was about a 40-year-old, against significant odds, reaching perfection, 14 years after his first no-hitter. No pitcher ever has gone that many years between no-nos.

Whether Johnson realizes the magnificence of the night yet or not, he will someday.

And that'll be a memory worth saving.

John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.