There are few things in life as rare and beautiful as a no hitter. In the whole history of Blue Jays baseball, only one has been thrown by a Blue Jay.  It’s not something you see everyday.  As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen one.

It’s a magical moment. The only fellow who ever threw a Blue jays no hitter, Dave Steib, caught the homerun ball that broke up Halladay’s no hitter with two outs in the ninth.  Tell me that’s not magic and I’ll tell you you’re blind.

Because it’s magic, there are some weird rules about the whole thing.  Superstition is the government in this territory.  It’s the only thing that makes sense.

While it’s happening, the words “no hitter” must never be mentioned by anyone lest speaking its name jinx it.  If you look at the bench, late into a no-no, you’ll see the pitcher sitting by himself, shunned by his peers and alone with his thoughts.  At the apex of achievement, there is only solitude.

Whatever a pitcher might do with the rest of his career is irrelevant.  Throwing a no-hitter makes you one of the greats.  If you were a hunter, this is like shooting a unicorn.  Who cares how many rabbits you killed?  You once shot a unicorn!

The magic governing the no-hitter is very clear for the team throwing it.  For the other team, it’s a bit shakier.  There are certain unwritten rules.

You should probably never bunt to break up a no-hitter.  I say probably because I think it’s okay to bunt to break up a no-no.  A bunt is, after all, a type of hit.  And it’s not the job of the opposing team to ensure the no-hitter.  Their job is getting hits.  What makes a no-hitter special in the first place is that it has to be earned.

But what is not okay, what can never be okay, what is just plain fucking wrong, is what AJ Pierzynski did to Rickey Romero in the eighth inning of a no-hitter.

He pretended to be hit by a pitch to reach base.

The next batter broke up the no hitter with a home-run.

Although he pitched one hell of a game, this is how the very young Rickey Romero looked after losing his no hit bid.  And why not?  He may never do that again.

No one knows or will ever know if Romero would have thrown that no-hitter if Pierzynski had not of cheated his way to first.  Maybe Pierzynski would have broken it up himself with a single up the middle.  We’ll never know.  We were cheated out of knowing that.  And the man who did it is just plain fucking scum.

He disrespected the game, the pitcher and himself.

It is just not the sort of thing that you do.  Ever. You don’t fuck around with a pitcher throwing a no-hitter.  You beat him or he beats you.  You play the game, you don’t play the umpire.    If you want to be hit by a pitch, you step into one.  You earn your base and you take your medicine.

And when you don’t, the umpires should make you.

But umpires miss calls and make mistakes.   Like cops and judges, they’re just humans in serious looking uniforms.  I can forgive their fallibility but not their stupidity.  Why an umpire would believe any acting job sold to them by AJ Pierzynski, who has a history of this bullshit, is beyond me.

The law failed.

It was time for frontier justice. In baseball, that means Mr. Pierzynski gets hit by a pitch.  Next game, first at bat, first pitch.  You hit the fucker and watch him drop.

This may sound savage but it used to be a big part of baseball.  There were a species of pitchers called headhunters who acted like the enforcers on hockey teams.  If you tried any bullshit up to and through the 1980s, you would get yourself hurt.  And some bullshit like this?  You might have a hard time stepping into the box against anyone for a while.

I don’t know.  I’ve never heard of anyone trying some bullshit like this.

Cheating is a part of baseball.  So is hard-nosed play.  Those things are baseball.

Ty Cobb, who was baseball’s most notorious villain, often sharpening his cleats to use them on defenders when he wasn’t attacking black people for “disrespecting” him in elevators, once said: “Baseball is a red-blooded sport for red-blooded men.  It’s no pink tea, and mollycoddles had better stay out.  It’s a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest.”

But those who would invoke the Cobb defence should remember that he was a Nazi son of a bitch and then reflect on something else he said:  “I may have been fierce but never low or underhand.”

Ty Cobb would have reached base by reaching base.  If he had to knock the shit out of the first baseman, mess with the pitcher’s mind or put his face in front of a fastball to get that base, that’s exactly what he would have done.   Would he pretend to be hit?

Not fucking likely.  That, my friends, is pink tea.

But that’s what AJ Pureshitski did.  It’s what he’s known for doing.  It’s why things like this happen to him and everyone cheers when they do.

In baseball, as if life, you can’t prevent assholes from cheating you.  It will happen.  Even though they should know better, no matter what incredible magic they’re cheating you out of, assholes will come along and they will cheat you.

But in baseball, unlike in life, these assholes have to step into the box against your team tomorrow.  And that’s when your team has to be there for you.

A.J. Pierzynski pulled his act on a Tuesday night.  I heard about it on twitter while at work.  He stepped back into the box on Wednesday.

The wife and I attended the game.  We were amongst the very few who did. Wednesday’s game was an all time low for attendance at the Skydome.

There’s something to be said for a quiet stadium.  You can hear every heckle and cheer.  The game is as intimate as anything at Christie Pitts.  It’s like you’re hanging out with the players and no one is really a stranger.  You’re part of a very small and dedicated crowd.  The people at this game know baseball and love it.

We got ourselves some good seats.  Right behind homeplate.  Beside us, with stopwatch and stack of papers, sat a scout for the New York Mets. (He took the above picture.)  In front of us was another from team unknown.

We were in a well of professional baseball knowledge, radar guns, stopwatches and charts.  This was a real treat.  For while my love of the Blue Jays is of the heart, my love of the game is of the brain.

My love of ballpark footlongs, however, has to do with my belly.

Pitching for Jays was the hard-throwing Brandon Morrow.  A frustrating guy to watch.  His fastball is in the mid to high nineties, his curve-ball can be devastating and his change up, well, his changeup needs work.  So does his control.  He’s not known for throwing a lot of strikes.

But, far as I was concerned, he only needed to throw one.  Right into the back of Pierzynski.  A straight ahead, no nonsense 96mph sphere launched from 60 feet away.  Something that would hurt.  Something to give A.J. something to cry about.  I wanted to see blood on the diamond.  Wanted to see if A.J. bleeds red.

Justice had to be served.

When A.J. Stepped into the box, there were boos and heckles aplenty.  Everyone thought they knew what was coming.  Brandon Morrow, who looked like a nervous kid, came set on the mound.  He wound up and threw. Up and in.

A brushback but not a bean.

Not good enough.

“ALMOST!” I shouted.

And that was it.  The moment was over.  A.J. never got his comeuppance.  Not even when the Blue Jays were down by ten runs and the game was lost, did they hit him.  They walked him.  They pitched around him.  With an open base and the soft hitting Omar Vizquel on deck, they pitched to him and he got an RBI.

No justice was served.

Brandon Morrow with one pitch could have become a fan favourite.  He could have sent a direct, clear and much needed message to the American League about what happens when you fuck with the Blue Jays.  He could have shown some character.  He did none of that.  He mollycoddled a scumbag.

Yet, we stayed and watched the whole 11-1 drubbing of our team.   Baseball isn’t always about winning, you see.  It’s about philosophy, the crack of the bat and the double play.  These are all uniquely beautiful things.  The score is just the score.

And I was happy we stayed because the most interesting lesson about baseball, games and the people who play them came last.  In defeat, it often does.

As A.J. moved towards his dugout, late in the game, after dealing with a crowd who wanted to see his blood, he did a very strange and sweet little thing.  He gently tossed a ball towards a kid in the stands, giving the child a souvenir to treasure and making a lifelong fan out of him. It made me smile.

That A.J. guy’s not all bad, I thought. But that kid should have thrown that ball right back at him.  Because A.J. is pretty fucking bad and even Hitler liked dogs.

Its not an excuse.