Cosmic

The Los Angeles Angels came home last night, and there was a whiff of the Beyond in it. It was their first home game since their teammate, Angels pitcher TylerSkaggs, was found dead in a hotel room in Houston, and they honored him in all the ways you honor someone taken so young and so abruptly.

His number, 45, was carved into the pitcher's mound. Every Angels player wore No. 45. And his mother, Debbie, threw out the first pitch.

Then things got, well, cosmic.

Maybe you don't believe in the Beyond, or that there is any consciousness or dimension beyond the human. Maybe you believe that when you die, you die, and all else is dust to dust.

But something was happening in that ballpark last night. Something.

To begin with, a couple of those guys wearing Tyler Skaggs' number, Taylor Cole and Felix Pena, stood out there on the mound Skaggs' so often occupied and pitched a no-hitter at the Seattle Mariners. It was the first Angels no-hitter in seven years, and the final score was 13-0.

Thirteen. Just like Skaggs' birthday, which is today, July 13.

But that was only the beginning of the weirdness.

Consider this: That no-hitter was also the first combined no-hitter in the state of California since the Baltimore Orioles no-hit the Oakland A's in Oakland. And the date that happened?

July 13, 1991.

The day Tyler Skaggs was born.