David Welch: Thrower of No-Hitters
On Friday night, Down Under, in the future, David Welch of the Sydney Blue Sox pitched the game of his life: A playoff no-hitter of the Adelaide Bite. It was the reincarnated Australian Baseball League’s first no-no, and Welch, a Sydney native himself, did it in front of his hometown fans. All 1,162 of them.
Welch struck out 10 and walked three. He was, as the kids say, “in the zone.” And, believe it or not, it was the third no-hitter Welch, 27-years-old, has been a part of. He combined with another Aussie, Simon Beresford, and two other pitchers, on a no-hitter for the Helena Brewers back in 2005, and in June, 2007, Welch threw a seven-inning no-hitter for the Huntsville Stars.
That’s a lot of no-hitters, yo.
It’s my dream, as a fan of the majestic game of baseball, to witness a no-hitter. Live and in living color. Which means I’m going to have to travel far and wide and watch David Welch pitch. He is the chosen one.
Tell me, have you ever been witness to a no-hitter? Or a perfect game? Were you in Florida when Roy Halladay achieved perfection? (Probably not, seeing as the game was in Florida, but it’s worth a shot.) What about in Philadelphia, when Doc no-hit the Reds? In the playoffs. Tell me what it was like. Regale me with tales of how you felt, and who you shared the moment with, and what the atmosphere was like when that final, fateful out was made.
And, finally, well, just because:
Image courtesy LIFE, via Google, and a tip of the cap to the folks at MiLB.com.
Navin Vaswani is a replacement-level writer. Follow him on Twitter.
I wasn’t at that game, but I was at *a* game and it still felt special.
I was taking in Brewers-Mets with a couple friends the night of Doc’s perfecto, a contest in which the score was 8-6 after four innings and the final was that same 8-6 — phenomenally boring last hour and a half.
But as the game went on, to amuse ourselves we took notice of the out-of-town scoreboard that was showing a 1-0 Phillies-Marlins game wherein the Marlins had yet to get a hit (it had the R-H-E line, you see). The 6th inning, the 7th, the 8th inning came and went, and still nothing. By then we were more interested in that outcome than the ballgame in front of us.
And then, it flashed on the scoreboard — “Roy Halladay has thrown a perfect game”. We were floored; a no-hitter is one thing, a perfect game is something else *entirely*. We weren’t in Florida, but it felt like we’d seen something special all the same.
Thanks for the story, mate. Out-of-town scoreboard watching. That’s one way to witness a perfect game. I was in Vegas the night Doc perfected his craft, sitting outside the entrance to Cashman Field, following along on my BlackBerry as a friend messaged me pitch by pitch. I couldn’t believe it.