Maybe Tyler Gilbert will go on to a long and successful career in the majors, full of victories, All-Star appearances and multimillion-dollar salaries.
Maybe he'll become a journeyman left-hander, moving from team to team, sticking around long enough to earn a nice pension.
Maybe we'll never hear from him again, one of dozens who debut in the majors every season and never make it back for a second year.
That's one of the beautiful things about this sport: Most of us, even the die-hards of the die-hards, had never heard of Tyler Gilbert until Saturday night; but for one evening, he was the best pitcher in the game.
"I don't know what just happened," the 27-year-old southpaw for the Arizona Diamondbacks said after throwing a no-hitter in his first major league start, becoming just the fourth pitcher to do so. "Crazy."
Absolutely. Even that little no-hitter fact doesn't do his performance justice. Two of those first-start no-hitters came in 1891 (Ted Breitenstein) and 1892 (Bumpus Jones), back when the major leagues could hardly be called major league and before the mound was moved back to its current distance of 60 feet, 6 inches. The only other modern pitcher with a no-hitter in his first start was Bobo Holloman for the St. Louis Browns in 1953.
Holloman would win just two more games in the majors in his only season in the big leagues.
See?
The New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox just played the well-received "Field of Dreams" game in Dyersville, Iowa, on Thursday, paying homage to the 1989 movie that is about fulfilling dreams and father-son relationships, with a side of baseball and James Earl Jones.
As Gilbert rushed through the eighth inning -- three pitches, three outs -- and then looked to finish off the San Diego Padres in the ninth inning, we saw his dad, Greg, watching intently in the stands in his white Diamondbacks jersey, celebrating every out with a fist pump.
We heard the crowd, a crowd that has suffered through a miserable Diamondbacks season, cheering with every out, as they too became members of the Gilbert family.
The final batter, Tommy Pham, swung at a first-pitch cutter and lined a ball to center field. At first reaction, it looked like it was going to be a soft liner that would fall helplessly to the outfield grass, but the ball hung up, and Ketel Marte corralled it for an easy catch.
Gilbert's teammates rushed to the mound for hugs of joy. His dad hugged other family members and fans in the stands. As Gilbert conducted his postgame interviews on the field, dad and mom, Peggy, came down to congratulate their son on his historic performance -- the first Diamondbacks pitcher to throw a no-hitter at home.
Daulton Varsho, the son of former major leaguer Gary Varsho, caught the no-hitter.
"You can't have baseball without family," Varsho said afterward. "That's a big thing for me. I grew up in the baseball life, so being around family is a big thing for me." He said he would go out and celebrate with his sister, who was at the game.
Gilbert made three relief appearances for the Diamondbacks, so it wasn't his first big league game. (Holloman also had made some relief appearances before his no-hitter.) The first of those was just 11 days ago. Some of Gilbert's teammates who mobbed him on Saturday probably didn't know his first name three hours prior.
Gilbert pitched at San Lorenzo Valley High School in Felton, California, and he is the first player from the school to reach the majors. He pitched at Santa Barbara City College and then one season at Southern California, and the Philadelphia Phillies drafted him in the sixth round in 2015. Gilbert started his first season in the minors in 2016, but then the Phillies converted him to relief. They traded him to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020. The Dodgers left him unprotected in the Rule 5 draft -- no, not the major league portion; the minor league portion. The Diamondbacks turned him back into a starter at Triple-A Reno, where he had posted a 3.44 ERA over 11 outings.
You can only imagine all the Little League games and high school games and college games and minor league games that dad and mom watched through the years, helping a major league dream come true. It seems unlikely that dream also consisted of "Pitch no-hitter in first major league start."
As you might guess from his résumé, Gilbert doesn't throw hard. Pitchers who throw hard usually aren't left at the bottom of the scavenger pile for another team to pluck. The fastest pitch he threw all game on Saturday was a 91.4 mph fastball to Pham in the fourth inning.
Still, Gilbert threw 47 fastballs out of 102 pitches -- working away to right-handed batters, and then trying to bust them inside with a cutter. He threw his cutter 48 times. And he worked quickly. Even in the ninth, he continued, as they like to say in Little League, "rock and fire."
The Padres made some hard contact, with five balls in play at 100-plus mph. Manny Machado had the hardest of those, a 112 mph line drive in the fourth that went right to left fielder David Peralta.
"They had a couple hard-hit balls, but I was glad somebody was there to catch them," said Gilbert, who finished with five strikeouts, including the first two outs in the ninth.
Some no-hitters are pure dominance, and some are simply games that go your way and you get your name in the record books alongside two guys named Bumpus and Bobo.