Credit: Randy Sartin-Imagn Images
By Matt Yoder on

There is a long, storied, and weird tradition around jinxing no-hitters in baseball. Some announcers and baseball fans treat the mere mention of a no-hit bid like the plague. And then there’s Dick Vitale.

Yes, Dick Vitale.

Nick Martinez of the Cincinnati Reds took a no-hit bid into the 9th inning against the San Diego Padres on Friday night. Unfortunately, his chance at history came to an end when Elias Diaz launched a double off the left field wall.

Still though, the Reds are in the midst of a hugely impressive run over the last few weeks. They are on a 13-6 run that has seen their record improve to 43-39 and firmly in the Wild Card conversation.

But whenever a no-hitter bid gets broken up in the ninth inning, it can’t just be that a professional baseball hitter was able to do their job at the plate. There has to be some kind of darker, nefarious force at play. Someone out there in the universe had the unique power to magically stop the no-hitter. Sometimes it’s an announcer, sometimes a social media account, and last night it was Dick Vitale.

The legendary basketball announcer randomly tweeted about Martinez’s no-hitter just before the ninth inning. When it was almost immediately broken up, he faced scorn from baseball fans everywhere for his faux pas. A couple hours later, Vitale responded only as he can.

You have to admit it is funny to see “YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!” in a totally different context from the basketball legend.

The no-hitter jinx is kind of silly when you think about it. No human being should have the ability to impact what happens on a baseball field 1,000 miles away based on a social media message. But human beings are funny creatures when it comes to legends, myths, and sorcery. And no sport does announcer jinxes quite like Major League Baseball. Apparently now that applies to legendary announcers from entirely different sports.

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