Jon Stewart opened Monday night’s Daily Show with video he personally recorded from his seats at Citi Field of Johan Santana completing the first no-hitter in New York Mets history. In the short clip he captured his family’s joyous reaction and then turned the camera on himself for what potentially might be documentation of the happiest person in the history of mankind. If you missed the show, thankfully twitter user @sp219 uploaded the clip from the show so we can all enjoy it.
The no-hitter wasn’t without some controversy. Carlos Beltran’s hit did indeed land fair and would have broken up the no-hitter if an umpire didn’t botch the call. But that’s the “beauty” about baseball, games are often decided by old fat men waddling around and strikezones that change drastically according to who the umpire is and what the weather is like that day.
As a Detroit fan who isn’t remotely close to being over Armando Galarraga’s robbery, I think arguing about asterisks in these types of situations is petty. If you still feel like complaining that Santana’s no-hitter should retroactively not count or be tainted then I personally feel your time might be better suited refilling the water in Buck Nasty’s momma’s dish instead.
I actually have had the insane luck of attending a no-hitter. Last year myself and three of my best friends were in Toronto for Justin Verlander’s second no-hitter. Four diehard Tigers fans among a half-empty Rogers Centre crowd that I’d estimate 80% were oblivious that Verlander had a perfect game going into the late innings (he walked a batter in the 8th). Watching a no-hitter develop in baseball is a unique thing. The Tigers were up 9-0 for much of an early May baseball game and nothing I’ve seen in sports has ever approached the amount of tension I felt watching that game.
My friends and I are the pathetic type that fully believe in no-hitter superstitions. Not once did we mention the situation that was going on in front of us which probably meant we had about 4 innings of very awkward and forced small talk because we didn’t want to be the jerks in the 500 level of the Rogers Centre that were responsible for breaking up the no-hitter.
So seeing Stewart bust out the camera to record the final out was a brave move I’d never dare to do. Thankfully he did, because it’s a pretty hysterical clip.
[@sp219]
