During a seemingly routine summer broadcast, the Cubs’ booth at Wrigley Field suddenly transported its audience to Cleveland. While Chicago faced the Reds, play-by-play man Boog Sciambi couldn’t help but glance at another screen, one showing Guardians right-hander Gavin Williams carving up the Mets. The air in Cleveland was electric with each pitch; the tension reached a different level. It had been years since the franchise felt this kind of excitement. Not since Len Barker’s game in 1981. With two outs to go, Gavin Williams was on the cusp of pitching a no-hitter. His place in history was beckoning,
The Cubs game rolled on, but the real drama, at least for a moment, was happening hundreds of miles away. Sciambi, a seasoned voice who knows the unwritten rules of the sport, couldn’t resist narrating what he was seeing. Superstitious fans might call it tempting fate; others might call it just good TV. Either way, you could feel the buildup, the sense that something rare was about to happen… or unravel.
“I’m scared that I’m going to call the play-by-play for that game,” Sciambi admitted to viewers, his tone toeing the line between humor and apprehension. Seconds later, Juan Soto stepped in, turned on a Gavin Williams fastball, and sent it sailing over the center-field wall, just beyond Angel Martínez’s leaping glove. Jim Deshaies didn’t miss a beat: “You can jinx a no-hitter from a thousand miles away.”
Boog Sciambi admits he’s watching Gavin Williams try to finish off a no-hitter while calling the Cubs game.
“I’m scared that I’m going to call the play-by-play for that game.”
*Juan Soto homers vs Williams*
Jim Deshaies: “You can jinx a no-hitter from a thousand miles away.” pic.twitter.com/QVMbVDh0Qb
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 6, 2025
It was the kind of gut-punch ending that makes baseball so addictive. Williams was on fire, throwing strikes left and right, getting guys to swing and miss, and staying focused all the way to a career-high 126 pitches. He just had it all working that day. Manager Stephen Vogt didn’t pull him, knowing fully well he was on the brink of immortality. But Soto, one of the game’s most feared hitters, had other plans. One perfect swing erased four decades of waiting. The last pitcher to throw a no-hitter for the Cleveland Guardians was Len Barker on May 15, 1981.
For Guardians fans, the heartbreak was raw. A near no-hitter isn’t just a lost stat; it’s a lost story, one that could have been retold for generations. And for Sciambi? His “jinx” will now live in the sport’s rich archive of bizarre, only-in-baseball moments.
Baseball has a long memory for moments like this. The Guardians will get another shot at history someday, but the legend of the no-hitter that traveled from Cleveland to Wrigley and died in the shadow of Juan Soto’s bat will be told for years to come.
Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt, however, didn’t flinch at all. With a four-run cushion in the ninth and Williams already at 118 pitches, Vogt didn’t glance toward the bullpen and let Williams continue. He defended his decision later.
Guardians’ skipper let Gavin Williams chase history
“With the four-run lead like that, you’ve got to let him go,” Vogt said. There was no safety net warming behind the mound. This was Williams’ game to win or lose on his own terms. However, it wasn’t always headed that way. Two scalded comebackers in the first inning had Williams thinking his start might unravel before it began. Francisco Lindor nearly took the glove off his hand, and Pete Alonso followed with another rocket that Williams somehow snagged.
“Heck no,” Williams laughed when asked if he saw this kind of outing coming after that first inning. “I thought it was going to go one way. And it was not the way I thought,” he added.
After that chaotic opening, the right-hander morphed into a machine, retiring 15 straight hitters at one point and bulldozing past his previous pitch count high, which was why Vogt never considered pulling him. And for 26 outs, it looked like the story might have the perfect ending. Then Juan Soto swung, the ball cleared Angel Martínez’s glove, and the no-hitter was gone. But even in defeat, Vogt stood by his decision. “You don’t know how many chances a pitcher’s ever going to have to do it,” he said.
Gavin Williams might not have joined Len Barker in the record books, but for nine innings, his manager made sure the game, and the history it carried, was entirely in his hands.
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