Squawker Jon and I will be at the first game of the Subway Series on Friday. It also happens to be Johan Santana’s first start after his no-hitter, so we will see if he will emulate Johnny Vander Meer and pitch two no-hitters in a row. Not very likely — Terry Collins would have to be tied with duct tape to a pole in the dugout, the way Pedro Martinez was a few years ago, to ever let that happen! There is no way he’s going to let Santana go past the pitch count again.
Anyhow, I have been hearing some Yankee fans grouse that Santana didn’t really get a no-hitter because of the Carlos Beltran foul ball that hit the line and should have been a hit, and so the no-hitter doesn’t count because of a missed umpire call. Really, Yankee fans? C’mon now. It counts. Leave the pettiness to Mets and Red Sox fans.
Let’s face it — at this point in time, the Mets are the little brother in New York baseball. Do big brothers whine like little schoolchildren when their little brothers do something good? No. They might be a little condescending about it, like pointing out how many no-hitters the Yankees have, but they don’t pretend that the no-hitter doesn’t exist.
Regarding the call on Beltran, you can say with pretty much every no-hitter — and every game, for that matter — that a call could have gone the other way. That is something the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Cardinals fans ought to have remembered when it comes to their asterisk nonsense about Santana. As Viva El Birdos 2012 Baseball Annual author Larry Borowsky noted, Bob Forsch’s no-hitter for the Cardinals in 1978 had an error that should have been scored as a hit. Yet the Post-Dispatch didn’t put an asterisk on it. Shocking.
As Yankee fans should know, here are some of the petty examples of things that Yankee haters have griped about over the years. They are angry that the Bombers started its 1990s dynasty based on Jeffrey Maier preventing Tony Tarasco from catching Derek Jeter’s postseason home run in 1996. I’ve heard the haters complain that Don Larsen’s perfect game ended with a called strike three that should have been ruled a ball. And Squawker Jon has helpfully reminded me over the years that David Cone’s perfect game against the Montreal Expos was basically against a minor-league lineup.
But guess what? All of those games counted. So Yankee fans, stop it already with the “Santana didn’t really have a no-hitter” nonsense, unless you are prepared to accept the Yankee haters’ points about our team’s triumphs.
Besides, there are plenty of other things we can mock our little brothers over and condescend to them about. Like Bernie Madoff and the Wilpons. Our franchise has celebrity fans like Denzel Washington, Paul Simon, and Jay-Z. The Mets have Mike Lupica and Bill Maher. Now that’s funny!
What do you think? Tell us about it!
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