In one of the more unusual situations of the 2008 MLB Season, Chicago Cubs starter Carlos Zambrano threw a no-hitter Sunday against the Houston Astros, and did so while his team was in division rival Milwaukee’s dugout. The Cubs-Astros game had been moved to Milwaukee due to the severe weather conditions in Houston caused by Hurricane Ike. The Cubs beat the Astros 5-0.
Three and a half cases. That’s how much beer the Cubs dumped on him in a surprise attack when he came back into the clubhouse later, after he had done it. They sprayed shaving cream, too. ”Z. Z. Z. Z.” He struck out Darin Erstad for the last out of his first no-hitter.
”I was watching the scoreboard every inning,” Zambrano said. ”In the ninth inning, when I came out, the crowd was all crazy.
”[I’m] confused right now. I still can’t believe. Great feeling.”
After the final out, he dropped to a knee and looked to the sky. And the Cubs came charging from all over. They flooded from the dugout and the bullpen, and surrounded him with a big jump-hug, the kind of thing you do when you clinch the division.
Which, in a way, the Cubs did.
”I guess I’m back,” said Zambrano, who threw a 99 mph fastball in the first inning. ”My arm is back.”
”The weirdest game I’ve ever played in,” Cubs first baseman Derrek Lee said. ”Just being in the Brewers dugout …”
Zambrano takes flack for the way he shows his emotions, for the way he walks too many batters and for the way he sometimes loses his cool. But there’s no denying his a workhorse pitcher, who gives it his all every time he takes the mound. He seems like a guy you would want on your team on a nightly basis because you know he’s going to fight to the end.
That said, is Zambrano’s no-no a future trivia question or what? “What MLB pitcher threw a no hitter at neither the home or away team’s stadium in 2008?”
