by Roy Exum
posted May 20, 2008
 Roy Exum |
Trivett would later recall his neighbor only nodded, aware that baseball’s greatest jinx is to mention a no-hitter before its final out. But this would be no ordinary no-hitter, not last night at Fenway, and some blogger summed it up so very succinctly for all of us around 3 o’clock this morning when he typed out the words, “Thank you, Father God.”
Jon Lester, who this time last year was unable to play for the Red Sox due to the ravages of chemotherapy for a terrible kind of cancer called anaplastic large cell lymphoma, allowed no runs, no hits and no errors last night as the BoSox trumped Kansas City, 7-0.
Jinx or not, all 37,746 in Fenway were screaming on Lester’s every pitch by the seventh inning, and the 24-year-old pitcher admitted his adrenalin was pumping as never before when he took the mound in the ninth, saying, “I’ve never heard Fenway so loud!”
So, moments later, when he threw his 130th pitch of the night, a 96-mph fastball past a blinking Alberto Callaspo on an 0-2 count to seal the deal, absolute pandemonium broke out.
Last fall Jon Lester won the clinching game in the World Series in a way that caused the entire Boston organization to weep in thankful gratitude, but this one was bigger because last night’s gem was the very first time Lester had ever gone the distance.
Now I don’t know whether or not you believe in angels but, from where I sit, there were several clustered around Lester last night.
One was Jacoby Ellsbury, who, playing in his rookie season, made a diving catch in the fourth when the Royals’ Jose Guillen smacked a quick looper into shallow centerfield. A rookie isn’t supposed to make that catch, but Ellsbury, his speed startling, got his glove on it. “It wasn’t until after the catch that I realized Jon had a no-hitter going,” he would later say.
Then there was the Sox’s catcher, brawny Jason Varitek, who raced off the plate at the end to gather Lester up as though he’d won another World Series. Varitek, who had a homer last night, has now caught four no-hitters – a Major League record – but Lester was so pure on the mound last night Jason didn’t catch the fever until late.
“I didn’t even know until around the seventh inning. I looked up and saw he was around 100 pitches and thought, he did his job,” said the catcher. “And I kind of glanced at the bullpen and saw no one warming up and thought, ‘That’s kind of weird.’ Then I looked back and saw the zero,” he said on the electric scoreboard, “and … it was good.”
Varitek added another delightful insight a little later. “You see somebody that is becoming a strong man. You see how he’s grown in strength from having to fight that disease. It’s a testament to people out there who have to go through something like that. It’s his time. His moment. I’m just fortunate to be part of it, but it’s his moment.”
The biggest angel of them all, though, was the club’s manager, Terry Francona. Now you need to know Jon Lester is from Tacoma, Wash., and when he was diagnosed with cancer 20 months ago, it was very hard for his folks to go back and forth across the country so Francona – to put it very bluntly – was like a second father.
When Lester was so sick at Mass General, there was Francona. When Lester was asking “Why me,” there was Francona. When the medicine worked, there was Francona. When he was chomping to get back into the “bigs’ during his rehab, there was Francona. And last night, as nobody noticed how chilly it was in the late innings, as Jon pitched his gem, there was Francona.
“I looked up in the ninth, and you’re trying to keep your emotions is check, and I went to say something to (pitching coach) John Farrell, and he was being a big baby right next to me,” the manager explained the tears. “It made me feel a little better after seeing him!”
So soon everybody in the park watched with glee as Francona literally lept from the dugout on the last pitch and beat his younger, faster players to the mound. “To watch him do that tonight is simply beyond words,” said the skipper, once he’d checked his emotions. “Yeah, I felt just like a proud father.”
Lester was stoic, saying the no-hitter does not diminish how he felt winning the deciding game of the World Series.” I can’t tell you which one means the most to me. The World Series is obviously the World Series. How many people get to say they won that? A no-hitter is a no-hitter. How many people can say they’ve done that? They are both up there. They both mean a heck of a lot to me. It’s something I’ll cherish for a long time.”
Believe this - so will the world.
royexum@aol.com
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