When Lindsay approached me (a week prior) about attending an upcoming Saturday afternoon Cubs game with our friends Suzanne and Jenn I immediately endorsed the idea, and then pulled out my phone in order to see what the pitching match-up was projected to be. Other than during the previous season when I purchased tickets for my dad, brother and me to see the Cubs play at Wrigley Field against the Yankees and Japanese pitching sensation Masahiro Tanaka, in recent years, I haven’t had good luck when it came to which starting pitchers I got to see.
In fact, over the past few years not only have Lindsay and I not had any opportunities to see the best Cubs, or opponent’s, pitchers, throw during games we attended, but we went through a string of games 3 years ago where we saw the Cubs’ 5th starter Scott Feldman start 4 consecutive games in 3 different cities. This year we had a similar streak to start the year when we attended 3 straight games started by the Cubs’ (then) 5th starter Tsuyoshi Wada, and the streak probably only ended because he got hurt during the 3rd start we attended and has been on the DL (disabled list) ever since.
So, after Lindsay asked me if I was interested in getting tickets for the Cubs game on Saturday July 25th, and I realized that Cole Hamels one of the best pitchers in the National League, was slated to start for the visiting Philadelphia Phillies, I was completely sold on the idea. After the Cubs lost the first 2 games I attended this season they rebounded by winning the next 3, and to make things even more exciting their rising star third basemen Kris Bryant hit a home run in all 3 wins; including a first inning grand slam at a game we attended on the 4th of July.
As a baseball historian (i.e. nerd) I am aware of certain facts from bygone baseball eras that most casual fans let slip from their minds soon after hearing in order to make room for more important information; however that fact only lends further importance to my job, which is remembering all those facts and then dropping them like Magic Johnson assists at just the right times in order to enhance other fan’s baseball viewing experience. Also, as part of being a baseball addict, I subscribe to certain rules, or superstitions if you will, that help guide how certain games should be watched; with one of the most important, and well-known, rules being that you don’t talk about a no-hitter while it’s happening or else you risk being a jinx.
However, even though baseball’s “unwritten rules” cover virtually every scenario that you could see in the average baseball game, as I sat in attendance on Saturday July 25th I couldn’t help but wonder if there was an inverse no-hitter rule, which told a baseball fan what to do when they were in attendance for a game at their favorite team’s home field and their team was being no-hit. This was the predicament I found myself in on July 25th of this year when my beloved Cubs were getting no-hit late in the game by the Phillies’ Cole Hamels.
It was during the 7th inning when I began to give credence to the idea that Hamels could actually throw a no-hitter, and starting thinking to myself that the logical thing for me, as a Cubs fan, to do would be to start talking about the no-hitter for the sole purpose of violating that baseball rule and thus jinxing the no-hitter for the other team. But then, I thought about how I’ve never attended a game, and the chances are very slim due to the rarity at which no-hitters are thrown that I will ever attend a game, where a pitcher throws a no-hitter, and even though my favorite team was potentially on the wrong side of history shouldn’t my baseball fandom supersede my love for that team? Therefore, in my current predicament shouldn’t I just keep my mouth shut about the no-hitter, and uphold baseball’s rule, so that, in spite of it being against my favorite team, I could witness baseball history in-person?
Of course, my dilemma was further complicated by the fact that I was in possession of the knowledge that the Cubs held the Major League Baseball record for the longest streak of any franchise without being no-hit, and that the last time it had happened was in 1965 when the great Sandy Koufax, pitching for the Los Angles Dodgers, threw a perfect game against the Cubs at Dodger Stadium. It had been almost 50-years since the Cubs had played a game without getting at least 1 hit, a remarkable streak for any franchise let alone one that has suffered through as many feeble seasons during the past 5 decades as the Cubs, so did I really want to be at the game when that streak came to an end?
During the 7th inning stretch I admitted to Lindsay that I thought Hamels might throw a no-hitter since his pitch count was still fairly low, and his control and wipe-out pitches had been so on-point, but as we entered the top of the 9th, with the no-hitter still in tact, I remained undecided on what I wanted to see happen. During that half inning was when I decided what I needed to do, and agonizingly rationalized my allegiance turn from die-hard Cubs fan to die-hard baseball history fan by convincing myself that since the Cubs were down 5-0, and even if they got a hit in the 9th they were still going to lose, so I might as well see history if the final result was going to be a loss either way.
The first 2 Cubs hitters in the 9th went down quietly, but when our last hope to starve off history and keep our streak in tact, Kris Bryant, stepped to the plate I had a sneaking suspicious that we were in store for a little drama. A few pitches later Bryant took a mighty cut and the baseball leapt off his bat and rapidly headed for the center field bleachers. For a moment I thought that he had hit a home run, but in the next moment the ball began to lose trajectory and ended up being caught on the warning track by the Phillies’ Odubel Herrera. While the Phillies players streamed out of the dugout and ran onto the infield in order to mob Hamels I was a little stunned by what I had just witnessed, but as we left our seats and walked out to the street I knew deep down that I would have other chances to see the Cubs win games, but perhaps I would never get another chance to witness baseball history.
