White Sox help fans commemorate Lucas Giolito's no-hitter

I was at the game April 18, 2007, when White Sox left-hander Mark Buehrle pitched a no-hitter against the Texas Rangers.

I have friends who were there July 23, 2009, when Buehrle pitched a perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays.

No-hitters are a rare thing -- only four of them have been thrown in the 30-year-history of Guaranteed Rate Field -- so if you get to see one in person, that could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It's a story that gets told and told again for years and years among family and friends.

It's just a shame that one of the aforementioned four no-hitters occurred Aug. 25, 2020, during the season of COVID-19, with no fans in the stands. No one will ever be able to say they were at the game when Lucas Giolito struck out 13 and thoroughly dominated the Pittsburgh Pirates.

One Sox fan I know tweeted, "My cardboard cutout has seen a no-hitter, and I have not. F**** 2020." 

Indeed.

But the Sox did make a nice gesture by sending out replica tickets to all their season-ticket holders to commemorate Giolito's no-hitter. These have my actual seat location on them, and we were able to frame them and put them on display in our home.

I criticize the Sox plenty on this blog, so let's give the team credit for doing something right this time. Thank you, Sox, for giving us something to help us remember one of the happiest moments of the 2020 baseball season.

April 18: the nine-year anniversary of Mark Buehrle's no-hitter vs. Texas

Mark Buehrle

I've long since lost count of how many baseball games I've attended in my lifetime. It's well up into the hundreds, I'm sure.

But the only no-hitter I've ever seen in person occurred nine years ago today, on April 18, 2007, when Mark Buehrle beat the Texas Rangers, 6-0, at U.S. Cellular Field.

I have my ticket stub and newspaper accounts from the game framed on my wall. I could live another 40 years and maybe not see another no-hitter in person, so that night in 2007 remains one of my most cherished baseball memories.

That game was a unique one in baseball history. It still is the only game ever to feature a multi-homer game, a grand slam and a no-hitter. Think of all the games that have been played over a century-plus in Major League Baseball. What I witnessed that night has happened just once -- Jim Thome hit two home runs, Jermaine Dye hit a grand slam, and Buehrle tossed a no-hitter, all in the same game.

I was very, very close to seeing a perfect gamet. Buehrle faced the minimum 27 hitters. The only blemish came with one out in the fifth inning when he walked the washed-up Sammy Sosa, then promptly picked him off.

Sosa was 38 years old at the time, in his last season in the big leagues. He was not a fast runner in the latter stages of his career. I don't know where he thought he was going. In any case, it was a funny moment because, well, Sox fans hate Sosa. He was a bum when he was with the Sox, then made his name with the Cubs (with the help of chemical enhancements), and it was always somewhat infuriating that he was wrongfully considered a better player than Frank Thomas in the city of Chicago. Time has proven that to be false, but it was great to see Buehrle embarrass the perpetually overrated Sosa with the pickoff.

The other image in my mind from that night was the final out -- a weak tapper up the third-base line by Texas catcher Gerald Laird. You heard a groan come up from the crowd as the ball left the bat; it definitely crossed my mind that the ball would die on the grass for an infield single -- it was that weakly struck. But fortunately, Sox third baseman Joe Crede still was in his pre-injury defensive prime at the time, and Laird was a slow runner.

Crede made the play easily, making it an historic and unforgettable night on the South Side of Chicago.