Sometimes Life Gives You Chills

I grew up as a California Angel fan. My dad took me to my first major league game at Anaheim Stadium where the Angels play, and earlier this year I got to take my son to his first game there and watch the team that I grew up rooting for.

Friday night that team, in that same stadium, had a night that will forever be one of the great moments in baseball history. Cue the chills . . .

Back on July 1st, the Angels announced that their pitcher Tyler Skaggs had died in his hotel room while the team was in Texas. The reason for his unexpected death at only 27 years old has not yet been released.

Last night at home, the Angels honored Tyler before their game against the Seattle Mariners. All of the Angels players wore Tyler's last name on the back of their uniforms along with his number 45, and his mom, Debbie, threw out the first pitch. And now is when the chills begin. The Angels went out and not only won the game by beating the Mariners 13-0: THEY ALSO THREW A NO-HITTER TO DO IT!

If you're not a baseball fan, a no-hitter is one of the most rare feats in baseball. And the odds of doing it on that particular night are astronomical. Oh, it was also done on the eve of Tyler's birthday; he would have turned 28 just hours after the last out was recorded.

If they had scripted that in a movie, the writer would have been laughed out of the pitch meeting, for he would have been told that idea is just too unbelievable. Sometimes life gives you moments that not even the movies can make believable. I still get chills watching the video below. What a great moment for Tyler, who I'm sure was there in spirit; his mom, who lost her son at too young an age. And what a great night for baseball, which sometimes gives you memories that last for generations.