Mark my words, when they put out the video entitled "The Chicago Cubs’ 2008 Championship Season", Sunday’s night game will be portrayed as the "the game that turned things around" for the Cubs.
Carlos Zambrano hadn’t pitched in over 12 days due to a sore rotator cuff. In his first day back, he no-hits division rivals Houston and allows only 2 base runners. For good measure, he went 1 for 3 with a run scored. It was pretty much a Carlos Zambrano show. He even called for a pop-up that D Lee would have normally gotten. Z is like that.
It was first Cub no-no since Milt Pappas’ gem 36 years ago. It was also the first no-hitter ever in a neutral park. The only downside was that the game was not televised outside of Chicago. But 23,000+ of the faithful showed up on short notice to cheer the good guys on.
At recent Cubs Conventions, Pappas had been telling Zambrano that he would be the next.
Every year at the Cubs Convention, Milt Pappas greets Carlos Zambrano with the same statement.
"He keeps telling me, ‘You will be the next one. You will be the next one,’" Zambrano said.
For the record for anyone who might be interested/worried, Zambrano threw 110 pitches. That’s a high count for anyone let alone someone coming off a rotator cuff injury. I bet Zambrano was flying through the last few innings though.
Yes, Sunday’s game is the stuff legends are made and just what the Cubs needed. Ted Lilly got the memo that the losing ways of the past is over. He even attempted to emulate Carlos and nearly succeeded. Lilly got through six without a hit today. It didn’t matter that Mark Loretta got one through. We won 6-1 and that magic number is rapidly dissipating.
I heard Milt Pappas talking after our recent Friday night rainout/tailgating at the Cell. Milt was on the radio, he’d been to the Cell that night as well. Pappas was talking about pitching on three days rest, how pitchers today are pussys, and that a former teammate of his, Ferguson Jenkins completed 30 of 38 starts in one season, more than both leagues combined today.