{"id":352,"date":"2012-06-05T18:53:44","date_gmt":"2012-06-05T22:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/?p=352"},"modified":"2012-06-05T19:13:30","modified_gmt":"2012-06-05T23:13:30","slug":"352","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/?p=352","title":{"rendered":"No-Han"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The expression of deep joy felt by Mets fans after Johan Santana\u2019s no-hitter Friday night shouldn\u2019t require much explanation but I was surprised by the number of people who pooh-poohed the historic achievement in its immediate aftermath.<\/p>\n

The feedback I received from an array of baseball fans with loyalty to other teams was uniformly disconnected from the accumulated experiences that prompted the Met fan to declare the accomplishment one of the most gratifying in the history of the franchise.<\/p>\n

I fully understand those who point to the five walks issued by Johan and the sixth-inning Beltran liner that kicked up enough chalk dust to choke third base umpire Adrian Johnson as he issued the blown call.\u00a0 Those same cynics also say the no-no lacks the importance of many other individual and team performances.<\/p>\n

But getting the no-hitter has incredibly deep meaning to the Met fan.\u00a0 Playing its 51st<\/sup> MLB season, the Mets had never recorded a no-hitter.\u00a0 That\u2019s 8019 regular season contests without a no-no.\u00a0 If you were a Met fan from the team\u2019s inception, (and there are lots of those folks in these parts) you watched 148 other major league pitchers notch a no-hitter while your team failed to do it once.\u00a0 Six of those 148 no-no\u2019s came at the Mets\u2019 expense.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re talking about an organization that sent out Seaver, Ryan, Matlack, Gooden, Darling, Cone, Glavine, and Pedro when most of those guys were in prime form for at least a portion of their stay here.<\/p>\n

What especially stung the Met fan was the fact that seven pitchers got no-no\u2019s with other teams after leaving the Mets.\u00a0 Nolan Ryan alone went on to throw seven no-hitters after departing.<\/p>\n

You obviously can\u2019t equate one of your own getting a no-hitter to winning a championship, but the Met fan was tormented by the elusiveness of scoreboards with a zero in the opponent\u2018s hit column.<\/p>\n

It was a constant source of frustration and became the subject of discussion at nearly every game I attended.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t there Friday night.\u00a0 In fact, I nearly missed it altogether.\u00a0 I had a horrible day at work and I spent a good portion of the evening at the Fed Ex pickup center in Maspeth waiting to pick up a new phone to replace the one that stopped working.\u00a0 When I finally got back to the apartment and got the new phone connected, it lit up with text messages.\u00a0 Since my directory had not been updated, I had no idea who was sending me messages but I flipped on the game in the top of the eighth.\u00a0 As I always do in these situations, I hit the record button on both the telecast and the radio broadcast.<\/p>\n

Howie Rose\u2019s call was electric.\u00a0 Magnificent.\u00a0 Rose\u2019s fandom goes back to the beginning.\u00a0 He had long strongly lamented the team\u2019s failure to get a no-no.\u00a0 Whenever one was broken up, he would advise fans of the precise amount of games gone by without one.\u00a0 He had that information handy, he says, because he noted the franchise\u2019s running game number in every scorecard he\u2019s ever filled out.<\/p>\n

What made Friday night even more special beyond finally getting the no-hitter was how it was obtained and the opponent it came against.\u00a0 Before realignment in 1995, the Cards and Mets had a great rivalry.\u00a0\u00a0 It heated up again during the 2006 NLCS.\u00a0 You know how game seven of that series played out and how it ended.\u00a0 Molina goes deep against Heilman, Beltran strikes out looking and the Mets haven\u2019t recovered since.\u00a0 That game is perhaps the most bitter pill ever swallowed by Met fans of the current era.<\/p>\n

Friday night was Beltran\u2019s first game back in Queens since being traded last season.\u00a0 He\u2019s been clubbing the ball for the defending world champs and key guys from the \u201906 squad remain on the current offensively loaded team.<\/p>\n

The seventh-inning Mike Baxter catch and crash\u00a0on a shot\u00a0that should have been a sure-fire Molina double saved the Santana no-no.\u00a0 That play will forever be remembered and evoked memories of Endy\u2019s grab of a Molina\u00a0blast to the same part of left field six years earlier at Shea.\u00a0 Baxter grew up a few minutes from the Met ballpark and wrecked his collarbone and rib cage as a result of his fearlessness and determination to keep the Cards hitless.<\/p>\n

The most intriguing aspect of the Santana no-no however is the absolute agony felt by Met manager Terry Collins as Santana went past his 115 pitch limit.\u00a0 We\u2019re not talking about a paranoid or arbitrary pitch max that\u2019s applied to a young arm.\u00a0 What Collins was responsible for dictating was a medically-advised progression for a pitcher who is eight weeks into a return to competition from a total surgical overhaul of his throwing shoulder.<\/p>\n

Collins squirmed as Santana went past 115 and a small part of him probably wished for a Cardinal hit.\u00a0 Johan ended with 134 pitches.\u00a0 Every throw he made past 125 felt like a threat to ruin the Met ace making $23 mil per.\u00a0 The conflict between making history and preserving the health of his team\u2019s best pitcher put the manager in a difficult spot.\u00a0 Had there been a no-no or two in the team\u2019s record books, I honestly believe Collins would have put his foot down at the end of eight innings (122 pitches).\u00a0\u00a0 Collins shed tears after the game, partly from happiness, but also because he questioned the wisdom of letting Santana continue well past the marker set by doctors.<\/p>\n

The way the Mets have played this year with a mostly homegrown roster made it the right time and place for a milestone so badly wished for.\u00a0 The waiting in sports makes the big accomplishment that much more special.\u00a0 This was a long wait.\u00a0 Those who lack the patience of waiting don\u2019t get the benefit of what Friday night felt like.\u00a0 It was Amazin\u2019!<\/p>\n

Now that the no-hitter is done, the obsession over it goes away too.\u00a0 Said Howie:\u00a0 \u201cWhat do we have to bellyache now?\u201d<\/p>\n

To hear Howie\u2019s call of the final out, click the on the audio icon below.\u00a0 It appears here without expressed written consent.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

It should be noted that Howie\u2019s broadcast partner John Lewin missed this game to attend his daughter\u2019s high school graduation.\u00a0 Howie joked during the post-game show that Lewin was likely on \u201crazor-blade alert.\u201d\u00a0 The former baseball executive Jim Duquette was Lewin\u2019s fill-in.\u00a0\u00a0Duquette smartly didn\u2019t utter a word during Howie\u2019s call of the ninth inning.<\/p>\n

Howie had never seen a no-hitter in person before Friday night.\u00a0 He carefully avoided saying the phrase \u201cno-hitter\u201d until after the final out was registered.<\/p>\n

Citi Field appeared to be half-empty but the scenes of people jumping up and down as the game neared an end reminded me of the enthusiasm level from baseball crowds from when I was a youngster.<\/p>\n

(The Santana photo at top of\u00a0this post\u00a0was taken at the 4-24-12 Mets\/Marlins game)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The expression of deep joy felt by Mets fans after Johan Santana\u2019s no-hitter Friday night shouldn\u2019t require much explanation but I was surprised by the number of people who pooh-poohed the historic achievement in its immediate aftermath. The feedback I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s28tEv-352","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":365,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions\/365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}