The Future

Phil Hughes’s four no-hit innings traveled through the Bronx on the wind. That was the only option with the game not on television or radio today.

It’s the same way news of him first reached the neighborhood. His legend started floating over high-school baseball fields and moved quickly through places like Charleston and Tampa and Trenton and Scranton.

All along it was passed down busy counters and across tables and around subway cars. It built on park benches and at newsstands and bars and cigar shops and crowded grocery stores.

And then one day the whole city knew everything about a pitcher none of us had ever seen. We all got a good look at him last year and everyone saw the promise.

Hughes will soon be at Yankee Stadium and all over the television and radio again, but today that promise belonged to those with the ability to imagine.

Close your eyes for a look – blazing fastballs, knee-buckling curves, exploding sliders, and disappearing changeups – at the future.