Not just another sports story

Tonight Jon Lester of the Boston Red Sox accomplished one of those great feats in sports, pitching a no-hitter.

On any other day, for any other ball player, that would be the story, and it would be important enough.

Except that 18 short months ago he was diagnosed with cancer, Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

After the game, Lester was interviewed about the journey from treatment to tonight, “It was a long road back. When I did get back, I wanted to be at a certain level and I wasn’t at that level and it took a while. It was tough mentally and tough physically to go out and pitch every five days. It was a long road.

I’m just glad that I’m here at this moment right now - and in five days, I’ll go and pitch again.”

The world needs stories like this to inspire us and give us hope. At least for me, this was a good night for sports, and a story I really needed to hear.

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Lester adds no-hitter to unbelievable tale (Yahoo! Sports)