Wade McGilberry and his wife Katy can now pay off their mortgage and start a family on a positive financial foot, and it's all because Wade's a gamer. Give Take Two a bit of credit as well for offering a $1 million prize to the first person to pitch a perfect game in Major League Baseball 2K10.
Wade, a 23-year-old from Mobile, Alabama, accomplished the feat in just 90 minutes, which is probably a lot sooner than the publisher would have liked. For the McGilberrys, however, it was time well spent.
"I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to do it, but I was going to try my hardest to," Wade said during a phone interview with GamePro.com. "I already told [my wife] that I was going to be taking the TV for the next couple of weeks or so until I did it."
As it turns out, Wade only needed seven tries, most of which was spent ignoring his in-game catcher's suggestions. Instead, he threw a bunch 2-seam fastballs as weak as possible, keeping them low and out of the strike zone. It would turn out to be a strategy that, after taxes, would be worth about $700,000.
Well played, Wade McGilberry, quite literally.
