I'm jazzed today due to Dodger pitcher Josh Beckett's no hitter against the Philadelphia Phillies. I got to hear most of the 6-0 Los Angeles victory on the radio. No-hitters are rare in baseball. The last one thrown by a Dodger pitcher was by Hideo Nomo in 1996. It's pretty close to the pinnacle achievement a pitcher can reach in one game. Most hurlers, even good ones, never toss a no-hitter in their entire careers. Don Drysdale and Don Sutton are two Dodger pitchers of the past whose careers were stellar enough that both are enshrined forever in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Together they have over 500 victories between them. Yet neither ever kept an opposing lineup of big league hitters without a single base hit over the course of a full nine-inning game.
Beckett's achievement is particularly remarkable considering a year ago it was an even bet his career was over. He had lost feeling in his right hand to grip the ball, and was shut down for the season after starting out with a record of 0-5. It was determined he had a nerve impingement, and he decided on radical surgery wherein doctors removed one of his ribs in an effort to unblock the nerve signals to his hand. Amazingly, the operation worked. With today's game Beckett has run his record to 3-1 with an excellent earned run average of just 2.43 runs per nine innings. These are some of the little joys that can brighten an otherwise ordinary day, punctuated many are with the depressing news items we so often are confronted with.
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