No No-No? Not Anymore

When you grow up a New York Mets fan, you get used to the near-no-hitters. Despite an impressive array of pitching talent throughout its history – 14 pitchers who’ve won a Cy Young Award have donned the orange and blue – Mets fans learn to accept the fact that their organization is star-crossed when it comes to no-hitters. There are, on average, two no-hitters thrown per season, but none of them have been thrown by a Mets hurler. Sure, the Mets have thrown a record 35 one-hitters in their history, but no no-nos. Call it an inconvenient truth or an unfortunate reality, Mets fans grow up knowing that not seeing one of their pitchers throw a no-hitter is their fate.

I grew up watching Mets games on a portable, black-and-white television with a four-inch screen  in my bedroom and, on April 28^th, 1992, I watched David Cone mow down the Houston Astros with ruthless efficiency at Shea Stadium. Cone was the Mets’ ace and I was used to seeing him pitch effectively, but that night was different. Even my 12-year-old eyes could see that Cone’s great splitter and slider seemed to have a little more bite, his blazing fastball a little more juice. The Astros couldn’t touch him and, after Cone kept them hitless through five innings, I started to get excited. After six no-hit innings, I convinced Mom to turn the color, 30-inch television in the living room to the Mets game, which was on WWOR that night. Cone got through the seventh with no problem, once again retiring the Astros without allowing a hit. The Mets were already ahead 4-0, and I was rooting for a quick bottom of the seventh so I could see Cone continue his run toward baseball history.

The eighth began with Casey Candaele grounding out. Cone then walked Eddie Taubensee, missing with a 3-2 pitch. The pitcher’s spot in the order was due up next and Benny Distefano was summoned to pinch-hit. The Brooklyn-born Distefano had never hit much at the Major League level, spending most of his career in the minors; the Astros called him up from Triple-A Calgary just three days prior and he was getting just his second Major League at-bat of 1992. Cone’s first pitch to the lefthanded hitter was a ball. The next pitch was a good pitch, a breaking ball down and away, and Distefano managed to hit it off the end of the bat. The baseball rolled slowly down the third-base line where Mets third baseman Dave Magadan watched helplessly; there was no way Magadan was going to throw out Distefano and he had to hope the ball rolled foul. It didn’t. Distefano had his first Major League hit since 1989 and the Mets were still without a no-hitter in their history. Cone settled instead for a two-hit shutout. Even though the Mets won, I remember feeling empty after the game. David Cone was so close! I thought to myself, as I lie awake in my bunk bed that night. And, of all people, Benny friggin’ Distefano was the one who ended it? Who the heck is he? It’s hard to fall asleep when you keep shaking your head.

I had a different feeling on September 29^th, 2007 when I watched the Mets battle the Florida Marlins in the season’s penultimate game, accompanied by my girlfriend, a friend of ours and his wife. My 10-year high school reunion was in Manhattan that evening so, through connections cultivated thanks to my job as the radio broadcaster of the Mets’ Double-A affiliate in Binghamton, New York, I was able to snag field-level box seats down the first-base line for that afternoon’s game at Shea. John Maine, a very talented righthander who was having a very good season, was having little problem with the Marlins’ young lineup. The Mets’ lineup had few issues with the Marlins pitchers, knocking out Florida’s starter in the second inning and building an 8-0 lead after three. I’d kept score at every Major League game I’d been to over the previous decade or so but I didn’t keep score that day, content to spend a relaxing afternoon with friends and show my girlfriend around Shea Stadium, which she was visiting for the first time. I even broke what had been one of my cardinal rules and left my seat while the game was in progress because I wanted to take my girlfriend to the Nathan’s Hot Dogs stand and have her partake in their legendary crinkle-cut french fries (she was a vegetarian at the time, so no delicious Nathan’s frankfurters for her). I noticed Maine was keeping the Marlins hitless, but I was conditioned; neither Maine nor anyone else for the Mets was ever going to throw a no-hitter, so no big deal.

My friend wasn’t feeling well, so he and his wife decided to leave during the seventh inning. Just before they departed, he turned to me.

“He’s going to get it,” my friend said.

“No. No he’s not,” I responded.

“Yes he will. It’s going to happen.”

I shook my head. My friend didn’t grow up rooting for the Mets, so how could he know? I hoped he was right, but I knew he’d be wrong.

Maine started the eighth by retiring the first two hitters. Maybe he will do it, I thought. He’s only one out from eight no-hit innings. Maine got ahead in the count against Marlins catcher Paul Hoover, a 31-year-old, September call-up who was playing in just his 15^th Major League game. Hoover then beat a 1-2 pitch into the ground and up the third-base line; the ball didn’t go more than 50 feet. However, neither catcher Ramon Castro or third baseman David Wright would be able to get to the ball in time to throw Hoover out at first base. And, once again, the Mets were denied a no-hitter. Mets manager Willie Randolph pulled Maine after that hit, and the fans gave him a rousing ovation. The Mets bullpen didn’t allow a hit in the 13-0 win and I went on with my day and to my high school reunion that evening without giving a second thought to what I’d just seen. I’d long ago accepted that Mets pitchers don’t throw no-hitters, no matter how talented or dominant they are.

That changed on Friday.

I’m not much of a New York Mets fan anymore. I still like them and still want them to do well, but the strong affinity I had for them as a youngster has dissipated, a victim of my career covering baseball for a living. But, on Friday, I became a Mets fan again.

I was at Kauffman Stadium, covering the Kansas City Royals, who were hosting the Oakland Athletics, when I saw on my Twitter feed that Mets pitcher Johan Santana had thrown five no-hit innings against the St. Louis Cardinals at Citi Field. Then six no-hit innings. Once the seventh inning began, I was following along on my iPhone, using Major League Baseball’s At-Bat app. When Santana got through the seventh without allowing a hit, I knew At-Bat would allow the eighth inning to be broadcast free of charge – you normally have to pay a fee to watch the television broadcasts of games – because a no-hitter was in progress. I watched the eighth as a clearly out of gas Santana worked around a walk, but still prevented the Cardinals from getting a hit. I thought Santana – who underwent shoulder surgery that prevented him from pitching in 2011 – would be pulled in the ninth inning in favor of a fresh arm from the bullpen. You don’t like to see pitchers removed when they have a no-hitter going, but I thought that would be the prudent move in this instance.

But, I continued to watch on my iPhone as Santana went back out for the ninth. I breathed a sigh of relief when Matt Holliday lined out. Allen Craig’s lineout was followed by a fist pump. David Freese swinging over an off-speed 3-2 pitch for the final out got me out of my chair and led to more fist pumps. Santana did it! He threw a no-hitter!

And, then, I stood in disbelief. Not only did Santana throw a no-hitter, but he threw a no-hitter for the Mets. This wasn’t Tom Seaver and Dwight Gooden, the two greatest pitchers in Mets history, throwing no-hitters after they left the Mets – adding insult to injury, Gooden threw his no hitter for the crosstown Yankees. This wasn’t Mike Scott and Nolan Ryan, two hard throwers who never figured it out with the Mets, going to other teams and tossing no-nos – Ryan throwing a record seven no-hitters after departing. This was Santana, whose surgically repaired shoulder hadn’t thrown more than 108 pitches, tossing a career-high 134 pitches and running on empty over the last couple of innings. There were no journeymen catchers or light-hitting utility players to spoil Santana’s moment, the Mets’ moment. The Mets had finally become like every other team (except the San Diego Padres, who still don’t have a no-hitter). Now, when a Mets pitcher takes a no-hitter deep into the game, Mets fans will believe it’s possible for their pitcher to get 27 outs without allowing a hit and, if that pitcher loses the no-no, Mets fans won’t think it’s because their team is cursed. If Johan Santana can do it, then any Mets pitcher can do it.

But, man, why couldn’t Benny Distefano’s ground ball have rolled foul?

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Only God Knows

By any measure, Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez is one of the greatest catchers in baseball history. Over his 21-year career, Rodriguez set Major League Baseball records for games caught, putouts by a catcher and assists by a catcher. He threw out 46% of attempted base stealers, the highest percentage by any catcher in 40 years. Rodriguez was the rare great defensive catcher who could also hit, setting the doubles record for catchers – he had 572 of them – to go along with 311 home runs and a .296 batting average. Rodriguez was also a 14-time All Star, 13-time Gold Glove winner, the 1999 American League Most Valuable Player and the 2003 National League Championship Series Most Valuable Player.

After an injury-plagued 2011 season with the Washington Nationals, Rodriguez wasn’t invited to spring training by any Major League team this year and decided to retire. Given his superb play, Rodriguez would seem to be a shoo-in for enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2017, the first year he’s eligible. However, it’s very likely Rodriguez won’t get into the Hall of Fame in 2017 and it’s possible he’ll never get a plaque in Cooperstown.

Why? Only God knows.

Those three words were uttered by Rodriguez in 2006, when a reporter asked him if he tested positive for steroids in 2003, the first year Major League Baseball tested for the drug (the tests were meant to be an anonymous survey and the names of the players who tested positive have never been released publicly). In his 2005 book Juiced, admitted steroids user Jose Canseco claimed he injected Rodriguez with steroids when they were teammates with the Texas Rangers in the early 1990s, a claim Rodriguez has denied.

A cryptic answer to a question and a book passage not backed by corroborating evidence are circumstantial evidence, at best. However, such evidence is enough for many of the Baseball Writers Association of America writers with Hall of Fame votes to keep Rodriguez off their ballots. Heck, players have been kept out of the Hall of Fame based on even less; Jeff Bagwell, who had an outstanding 15-year career as the Houston Astros first baseman, has been eligible for Hall of Fame enshrinement for two years and has yet to come close to getting the required 75% of the vote because of “whispers” that he may have used steroids. In other words, I could make up a rumor about a great player using steroids and, if that rumor gains enough steam, it could be enough to keep that player out of the Hall of Fame.

Rodriguez and Bagwell both played during the 1990s and early 2000s, a stretch of time that will forever be known as the Steroid Era in baseball; testing was nonexistent and fans, media and Major League Baseball looked the other way, deciding to ignore the rapidly changing physiques that hinted at the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. Without question, Major League Baseball should have instituted mandatory drug testing sooner and the media should have paid more attention to why muscles were bulging and home run records were falling at an unheard-of pace. But, history can’t be rewritten. Just as we don’t look down on all of the great Major League ballplayers who competed before integration or pitchers who achieved success largely by scuffing and doctoring baseballs with foreign substances before the practice was banned, we shouldn’t shun those who played in the Steroid Era. Indeed, steroids are illegal in the United States, but that’s immaterial; since baseball didn’t test for steroids, they were implicitly permitting their use. Some believe the Major League Baseball powers that be knew what they was doing; the rise in home runs – especially the legendary pursuit of the single-season home run record by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998 – helped increase attendance after a debilitating strike that created ill will and wiped out the 1994 postseason and shortened the 1994 and 1995 regular seasons. So, why attempt to curtail an activity that may be one of the principal reasons business is booming?

This is different from Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s all time leader in hits, being excluded from the Hall of Fame. Rose, who was banned from the sport for life after it was found he violated a long-standing rule by betting on baseball games, isn’t even allowed on the ballot. A year before he was eligible for enshrinement for the first time, the Hall of Fame passed a rule prohibiting anyone on baseball’s ineligible list from being considered for election. Whether Rose should be in the Hall of Fame has been taken out of the voters’ hands. However, it would be impossible and/or unfair to unilaterally ban all Steroid Era players from being considered for enshrinement, because it’s difficult to know for certain who did and didn’t take steroids during that era and many of that era’s deserving players who never took a performance enhancing drug would be shut out because of the misdeeds of their peers.

I kind of understand BBWAA members not voting for McGwire, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens or Rafael Palmeiro; all those players have either admitted using steroids, were found to have used steroids after an extensive investigation or tested positive for steroids, so there is more than just hearsay or circumstantial evidence that they juiced. But, I’d even vote for those players; why penalize anyone simply because of the era in which he played? If a player was one of the best in his era, he should be in the Hall of Fame, regardless. Baseball players have been looking for a competitive edge over the game’s entire history and can’t be expected to regulate themselves, especially when millions of dollars are at stake. It’s up to those in charge to make decisions that level the playing field and account for player safety in a reasonable fashion, and those in charge dropped the ball during the Steroid Era. Therefore, players who achieved success during that era shouldn’t be punished because of their bosses’ lack of oversight when it comes to performance enhancing drugs. It shouldn’t be up to the BBWAA’s Hall of Fame-voting members to determine who did the right things off the field and who didn’t. It shouldn’t be up to the baseball writers to determine what’s morally and ethically acceptable in the game.

After all, they’re writers. Not God.

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