Thank You Johan

i still hate the cardinals

its not often one player is responsible for literally lifting up an entire fan base.... so when johan santana completed the first no hitter in mets history last night (with a big assist to mike baxter, and the temporary blindness of the 3B ump), it wasn't just the fact that there are three generations of fans witnessing the same thing for the first time ever, it also cut loose a burden for every mets fan who had to sit through the list of "teams without a no-hitter" EVERY time someone threw one... the talk of the 'nolan ryan curse' and the list of pitchers who threw no-hitters after leaving the mets...

now, any time a no-hitter is thrown i will think of johan and june 1st and mike baxter and david freese striking out to end it... so awesome.

and thats the crazy thing - no-hitters are nice. but they are not that special. (especially when compared to perfect games)... but this one IS special. it IS a huge deal. and its because of the 50 year history of this franchise where a no-hitter was the most elusive thing of all time.

and it matters that it was johan who did this. granted, 24 hours ago i would not have cared who threw a no hitter for the met. could have been hefner or schwinden... i just wanted one... but there is no denying that watching johan do this made it infinitely better.  for whatever reason, when he got through the 8th inning (where he appeared to get a little wobbly) i thought he had it... i usually don't have a high level of confidence with the mets... but i thought he'd get through it*.

so this improbable season reaches a high point on June 1st.... what else can they do to surprise us? this team had been a pleasure to watch even before last night... and what else is there to do other that keep enjoying it.

Lets Go Mets Go.

*if freese walked, my confidence would have gone from about a 9 out of 10 to a 0 because yadier molina was on deck, and there is no doubt he would have broken up the no hitter....that guy f'n murders us...  luckily johan had one nasty change up left to finish it off.