What might have been

My school board meeting Tuesday evening was over by 8:07 — miraculously early. On the way home the radio told me about Taijuan Walker’s no-hitter, which survived the 4th inning. Before I left the car in the driveway I texted (as a good Commissioner should do when a team in his league has a perfect game going) a brief message to Kangaroo owner:

Turn on Taijuans game

Ryan texted back that he’d had it on since the first inning. I watched when Ketel Marte bounced a throw to new Wolverine Dan Vogelbach. Dan is no defensive whiz. He couldn’t handle it. The perfect game was gone.

I watched when that Rosebud Kole Calhoun broke up the no-hitter. That was my fault. I had just finished telling Sam he could have the TV to play FIFA when the no hitter was over. Two pitches later…

Anyway, I listened to the rest of the game on my phone.  Walker finished a brilliant 3-hit shutout with 11 ks and no walks. All game the announcers for the Ms (and in the ninth, the announcers for the Angels) were raving about how Walker had finally let Mel Stottlemyre, Jr. fix his delivery after a disastrous outing 10 days ago (against the Angels in Seattle). They all said this start marked a turning point in Walker’s career.  Had he listened to his coach earlier, they implied, he could have been pitching like this all season.

I don’t know about that. But I can guess that Kangaroo management, in the wee hours of a Washington, D.C. Wednesday morning, had to wonder about what might have been…