Santana, Thole and Collins gather
The Mets had some special guests in the house on Tuesday night. With Wednesday being the 10-year anniversary of Johan Santana’s no-hitter — the only individual no-hitter in the team’s history — the former Amazin’ left-hander was at Citi Field on
Tuesday along with Josh Thole, his catcher that night, and his ex-manager Terry Collins. The three fielded questions — and barbs from Buck Showalter, as Santana was asked if he could give him an inning — before Santana’s son threw the ceremonial first pitch to Thole’s son.
The man who threw the legendary game said that at the time, he had no idea he was going to be the first Met to do it.
“I didn’t know that there had never been a no-hitter,” Santana revealed. “As we were going through the whole thing, I started getting all excited. The atmosphere changed throughout the whole field. I was thinking, ‘Maybe this is it. We have a chance to do something very special, very important.’ It just happened to be the night. I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to do the first one.”
An unfortunate side effect of that night was that Santana had to throw 134 pitches to get it done, a number he can still instantly recall. Collins was asked if he has any regrets over that, especially since Santana only made 10 MLB starts (with an 8.27 ERA to boot) after that and dealt with gruesome shoulder problems.
“I would make the same decision,” Collins emphasized. “I felt he deserved the opportunity to try and get it because of who he is and what he stands for. The people who were in the stands, they deserved to have that opportunity. I know it probably hurt him, from throwing that many pitches, but I’ve come to realize that I probably would have done exactly