Many of you know that I'm a huge Boston Red Sox fan. One of my favorite players on the team is Jon Lester. He is a starting pitcher, who by the way is originally from Tacoma, Washington. He was one of the "young guns" that the team brought up through the farm system and was a hot prospect. In August 2006, he was diagnosed with anaplastic large cell lymphona. After nearly a year of treatment, he came back in late July 2007 and ended up starting in Game 4 of the World Series, leading the Sox to the World Championship.
For many, that would be the fairy tale ending. Then May 19, 2008 comes around. Lester, who had not pitched a complete game in his major league career, turned in a perfomance that few accomplish, that is throw a no-hitter. It was the first no-hitter of 2008 and the last to be thrown since another young Red Sox pitcher did the honors (Clay Buchholz) last September. It was great performance: 130 pitches, 9 strikeouts and allowed only 2 baserunners.
Here was his reaction after the game:
http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?&brand=null&videoId=3404159&n8pe6c=2
I'm reminded again of the quote that RP Mike Timlin said after the World Series victory:
"This is going to sound funny. But God blessed Jon Lester with cancer just to show a lot of people that you can overcome something that's so hard in your life you think, 'I'm not gonna make it.' He's going to be able to take his faith in God and the strength God gave him and tell a lot of other people a great story."
Amen to that.
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