Lester's story reaches realm of amazing

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Jon Lester on Monday night accomplished a feat that eluded such Hall of Famers as Lefty Grove, Whitey Ford, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Early Winn, Dizzy Dean and Robin Roberts. The young Boston Red Sox left-hander took the mound in big-league baseball's oldest park and added a new chapter to his burgeoning legacy. He threw a no-hitter.Before any given game, the odds that fans will witness such a momentous event are about one in 780. The odds of any given pitcher throwing a no-hitter are twice that: one in 1,560.The odds of a no-hitter produced by a 24-year-old who'd never thrown a complete game in 35 previous major-league starts, who last spring was recovering from treatments for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma -- and who this spring was rumored to be on the trading block -- well, those odds are off the charts.One in a million sounds close. One in a trillion sounds better.A second-round draft choice in 2002, Lester's ascent into the Red Sox starting rotation was detoured because of health issues originally thought to be a back problem sustained in a minor auto accident. Placed on the disabled list for the last two months of the 2006 season, Lester's back problem was merely a symptom of a far more sobering diagnosis.Facing a fight with cancer, any kind of return to baseball, at any professional level, would have been seen as an inspiration -- a "moral victory," as it were.Since returning to the Red Sox in July, the Tacoma, Wash. native has long surpassed the moral-victory threshold. Lester has crammed a virtual lifetime of highlights into the past 10 months. Before Monday, he was most remembered as the pitcher of record in the final game of the Boston's 4-0 sweep of the Colorado Rockies in last October's World Series.Given the circumstances -- the famously imposing mile-high altitude of Denver's Coors Field, the fact he was making his postseason debut, the pressure of taming a Rockies lineup that rolled through the first two tiers of the playoffs -- Lester's effort was one for the storybooks. He held Colorado scoreless before he was removed with two outs in the sixth. But if the World Series clincher was a study in poise and superior crisis management -- he gave up three hits and walked three -- Lester's performance on Monday night against Kansas City qualified as a tour-de-force, with an emphasis on De Force.He struck out nine. He threw 130 pitches, the last of which, delivered to the Royals' overwhelmed Alberto Callaspo, was clocked on the Fenway Park radar gun at 96 mph. It was high and outside, and Callaspo couldn't have done much with the offering had he made contact.But we'll never know. Callaspo's swing missed, and it wasn't close. Strike three. Bedlam."I probably had more adrenaline going in the ninth inning than I did in the first inning," Lester said afterward. "I guess that's normal in that situation."Other than Nolan Ryan (who threw seven no-hitters), and Sandy Koufax (who had four), the ranks are thin on those qualified to expound on what's normal in such a situation.On their best days -- and their best days often were on display twice a week -- Christy Mathewson, Bob Gibson and Tom Seaver were the most dominant of pitchers. Each threw a no-hitter. Once.Lester's inclusion into this elite group is accompanied by a smiley-face asterisk: His first no-hitter happened to be his first complete game.Red Sox manager Terry Francona, skilled at handling larger-than-life personalities -- this is the guy who once managed a curveball-challenged Southern League outfielder named Michael Jordan -- considers the low-key Lester part of the family. "My son graduated from college yesterday," Francona said, "and tonight, my other son threw a no-hitter."A year ago, all Lester wanted was to stand again on a big-league mound and grip a baseball. Monday night at Fenway Park, after throwing 129 pitches, he wound up and sealed a no-hitter with a 96 mph fastball. To watch the final feeble swing and Lester's emotional embracement of Francona, the seemingly disparate passions of the Red Sox Nation and Pierce County (Wash.) sports fans were united in the only appropriate word for a one-in-a-trillion occasion.Wow.(Contact John McGrath at john.mcgrath@thenewstribune.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)