one man's words • My dad called me during the 9th inning of tonight's Mets no-hitter.

My dad called me during the 9th inning of tonight’s Mets no-hitter.

He’s a lifelong Mets fan. He’s the one who turned me into a Mets fan. He basically made me a baseball fan. He taped over my 2nd birthday with Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.

We exchanged pleasantries as Johan Santana got OF Matt Holliday to fly out to center. Our hold on a no-hitter became less tenuous as Santana got OF Allen Craig to fly out to left. And then, as he got 3B David Freese swinging on a nasty breaking pitch low and away, we erupted.

We both screamed and cheered into our phones as the Mets rushed onto the field to celebrate with Santana. “I can’t believe it’s happened!” “Holy shit!” “Unbelievable!” “It’s finally happened!”

Our favorite baseball team — the reason we’re baseball fans — pitched its first no-hitter ever against the best-hitting team in the National League, the defending World Series champions, the team that squashed our World Series hopes with a stupid-good curveball for strike three during the last inning of Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series.

It wasn’t vindication, but it was something close to it. And to win 8-0 tonight against the pitcher that put the nail in the coffin on that fateful night in October 2006 … it was that much more special.

I don’t talk to my dad that often — once every couple of weeks if we’re lucky. But we talked to each other during this moment, we shared it with each other as if we were on the couch together, like we always used to be.

I wouldn’t have had it any other way.