The No Hitter (And the HOU-CHI in MIL Stuff You Missed)

It's a day later and I still can't get over the fact that I was in the stands for a Major League no hitter, especially when I started the weekend expecting a quiet Sunday of watching football at home. I already said my piece on the strange and questionable circumstances that brought the two teams to Milwaukee, but I had expected kind of a droll game. Everybody had two days off, the Astros are dealing with the hurricane's aftermath and so it would be unlikely that anybody would have their A game.

Except Big Z. And here I went in mostly looking forward to seeing if all that talk about his BP sessions are true (they are, by the way). Instead, we are treated to the first Cubs no hitter in three decades, 23,000+ Cub fans getting Wrigley North all to ourselves (a few Brewers and Astros fans were scattered in there, but it was definitely our night) and a reason for all of them to cheer the roof off. Except for one or two ESPN live look-ins and a slow-pitch softball game I scored where I gave the right fielder a tough error on a line drive, I've never witnessed a no hitter. Without my camera, and with an online printout instead of a genuine ticket stub, the best I could do to honor the occasion was call my grandma in Niles and let her listen in on the postgame celebration.

As dominating a story as Zambano's magnum opus is, there were many interesting sidebars to the "neutral site" game. Unlike the Indians-Angels series last year, where Milwaukee fans adopted the Indians and treated them like the home team, this year the Miller Park crew were totally neutral. Why's that interesting?

• Bernie was AWOL from his perch and there was no sausage race. I may be a Cubs fan, but as a Wisconsinite I felt deprived.
• It's a beautiful moment at the start of every baseball game when the home team rushes out onto the field. Unless the crowd is squarely behind the "visitors." Then all you get is a loud chorus of boos. Awkward.
• Despite being the home team, the Astros used the visitor's dugout and bullpen, due to familiarity and not having to worry about messing with Prince Fielder's stuff. The Indians did the same thing last year. That's not strange. What was strange was that both teams wore their road uniforms. Some have whispered that it was a silent protest by the Astros on how at home they really felt, but methinks it was because they didn't want to bring their home whites to Milwaukee, then have to swing by Houston en route to their next series in Florida just to pick up their dry cleaning.
• The stadium fan cam did its best to spotlight fans of both teams. When the crowd is 95 percent Cub fans, putting the few Astros supporters that were there on the replay board is not such a good idea. Poor folks.
• Instead of sponsored games and giveaways, a lot of the between-inning entertainment were trivia questions for both the Astros and Cubs. Coincidentally, the first question of the night asked which Astros pitcher threw a no hitter in 1986 to clinch the NL West.
• Miller Park puts the lyrics to Take Me Out To The Ballgame on the big board during the stretch. With the Brewers out of town and the Astros fans outnumbered, the lyrics for this series read "Root, root, root for the (your team here)."
• Speaking of the stretch, more Cub fans need to learn to sing the Beer Barrel Polka. Without the Brewer faithful in the house, we weren't rolling out the barrel very excitedly.
  
• I heard "Go, Cubs, Go" about six times on the way to the parking lot, twice with musical accompaniment. It even made the wait to get out bearable!