Zambrano-no

Eli can't believe the Bears blew that game, but is looking forward to watching Big Z's return tonight----3:25pm

That was my Facebook status earlier today. About a half-hour after the Bears loss at Carolina, I put that up, and then went out for a walk. I needed to clear my thoughts from the football game, get some exercise, and also go to the bank to deposit a check. While on my walk, I called my friend Brian and talked about this evening's Cubs game against the Houston Astros. The game, because of Hurricane Ike, was to be played in Milwaukee, but that's not what was on my mind. It was the return of Carlos Zambrano to the Cubs rotation that had me thinking. Throughout August, Big Z hadn't been himself, struggling to get outs and often times, failing to eat up innings. And after some shoulder soreness, number 38 had been out of the rotation for a couple of weeks. Tonight was to be his return. Both Brian and I didn't know what to expect.

Nearly six hours later, we now know what kind of return it was. Zambrano was not only good on Sunday night, he was great. As in no-hitter great. As in, the first Cubs no-no since 1972. His fastball was perfect, painting the edge of the strike zone and blowing by helpless Houston hitters. His breaking ball wasn't any worse, making many Houston hitters look foolish in their attempts. Z finished with 110 pitches, ten strikeouts, one walk, one hit batter and one double play. Houston hitters grounded-out 13 times, struck out ten and only had four fly outs. That's how good Zambrano was---only four hitters actually got the ball out of the infield. Add to that the offense was good, Soriano's leadoff home run was great, and it was just a beautiful evening to be a Cubs fan.

If this makes no sense and it just seems like am rambling, then I apologize. I'm just really excited right now, after watching every pitch of the game. After inning number six, I called my buddy Sam and told him that Zambrano had a no-no. And while there was a chance that the game would end with zero in the Houston hit column, it still wasn't a great percentage with nine outs to go.

After inning number seven, I called a different friend, Marc. I knew he had been traveling, but I wanted to see if he'd made it home to watch this game. He was still on the road, and asked that I update him every half-inning. Still, with only six outs go, I wasn't 100% sure I was actually going to see history.

When the Astros were retired in the eight, I called my dad, to see if he was watching. Little did I know he was not at home, but in Baltimore on a business trip. He didn’t' have WGN at his hotel, but found that ESPN was showing the final inning and began to watch that. I called Marc back, giving him the play-by-play of the bottom of the ninth. First Humberto Quintero grounded out to Ryan Theriot on the first pitch of the at-bat. After fighting off some pitches, Jose Castillo did the same. One out to go. Darin Erstad was the only person between Zambrano and history. And on a full count, after bouncing a pitch in the dirt, Zambrano struck out history, jumped up in the air, as the entire team mobbed him at the pitchers mound. I turned the volume on the TV up, stuck the phone by it, and Marc and I listened together as Cubs announcer Len Kasper tried to describe what was going on. Then I told Marc I had to go and began making more calls.
First was back to Sam, who was equally in shock as I. He'd been following the game on the web and was both upset he hadn't seen it live and happy that it happened. He's a huge Zambrano fan- as every Cubs fan is- and loved that big #38 had come back from his injury with a performance like this. Then I talked to my dad, who was glad that I'd notified him of history in the making. Earlier in the summer I taught him how to keep score, and he mentioned tonight how it would have been neat to record a game like this. Finally I called back Brian, who goes to school in Wisconsin. He loved the fact that the first no-hitter in Miller Park history had been thrown by Big Z, and that the playoffs were now a certainty. We talked about how so many times, Z has looked like he had no-hitter caliber stuff, but never actually did it, and how it was so unusual for something like this to happen to the Cubs.

Finally, after all the calls were done, I went back to Facebook, and decide to change my status. And six hours and 17 minutes after my first post, my new status reads:

Eli is in complete shock. I just watched Carols Zambrano throw a no-hitter (and yes, I saw all 27 outs). ---9:42pm