A no-hitter, a Texas breakfast, and the surprising story of a young Aaron Nola and an old Cole Hamels

It was only his fifth night in a big league dugout, but Aaron Nola knew early on what was unfolding. As he leaned against the padded railing and looked out across the infield grass, he found himself mesmerized by the lanky lefty on the mound. The elegance of the leg kick, the effortlessness of the delivery. More than anything, the intensity the focus that preceded every pitch. On a muggy July afternoon, in one of baseball’s most hallowed cathedrals, Cole Hamels was saying a near-perfect goodbye.

“First time I ever saw him pitch in person,” Nola said on Thursday afternoon, three days after Hamels ended his latest comeback and officially retired. “I made one start here and then that was my first road trip.”

A wistful smile crept across Nola’s face.

“Chicago,” he said. “Man, seeing that ...”

His voice trailed off for a second as he flashed back to that one fateful week when the two greatest homegrown pitchers in modern Phillies history happened to cross paths.

Nola was barely a year removed from college when he arrived at Citizens Bank Park on the afternoon of July 20, 2015. In some ways, he was a hotshot who needed no introduction. The No. 7 overall pick in the 2014 draft, Nola had started just 29 games in the minors when the Phillies promoted him to the big league roster. He was a consensus top-100 prospect, a Futures Game participant, the brightest beacon of hope in the team’s dark rebuilding process. Everybody seemed to agree that he was a future star.

Yet he was also a typical 22-year-old who could be as awkward and uncertain as the one who’d broken into the big leagues a decade earlier. The first thing Nola saw when he walked into the Phillies clubhouse was the nameplate above his locker. The second thing he saw was the nameplate two stalls down.

“His locker was right there,” Nola said, pointing to the space now occupied by J.T. Realmuto.

At the time, Hamels was well aware that he was on his way out of town. The Phillies were in the midst of one of their most discouraging seasons in franchise history. They’d entered having lost 15 of 18 games and were a whopping 30 games under .500. Chase Utley and Cliff Lee were on the injured list. Carlos Ruiz and Ryan Howard were hitting .211 and .229, respectively. The manager had quit.

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The Phillies knew that their best chance at winning the World Series was trading away the guy who’d won them their last one. Nola wasn’t here to learn from Hamels. He was here to replace him.

“It was nerve-racking,” Nola said. “I was a 22-year-old kid and these guys had won a World Series not too long ago. I just wanted to fit in and do my job and not get in the way of any of those guys.”

Yet, learn he did.

Hamels welcomed him warmly. That didn’t necessarily surprise Nola. But it did make an impact on him, one that he has attempted to pay forward to younger players every day since.

“He took me in with open arms, really paved the way a lot,” Nola said. “We talked a lot about pitching, got to know him on a personal level.”

One day later, Nola made his big league debut, holding the Rays to one run in six innings. The following night, they hit the road for Wrigley Field. Nola was scheduled to pitch the series finale on Sunday afternoon. That Saturday, he found a comfortable seat in the dugout and settled in to watch Hamels take the mound.

Nola understood the circumstances. With the trade deadline looming, the Phillies were in the midst of negotiations with the Rangers on a deal that would ultimately send Hamels to Texas for a package of young talent. Nola knew this might be his only chance to see the former World Series MVP pitch in person. It didn’t take long for him to realize he was witnessing a crash course in greatness.

After walking Dexter Fowler to lead off the game, Hamels retired the next 17 batters he faced. He walked Fowler again with two out in the sixth, then responded with four strikeouts in a row. By that point, everyone in the visitors’ dugout knew what they were watching.

“Awesome,” Nola said, “Feeling those nerves in the eighth and ninth inning. Just awesome.”

The day after Hamels’ no-hitter, Nola recorded his first big league win. The day after that, Hamels was gone.

Eight years later, Nola can only shake his head as he flashes back to that week. He is 30 years old now, a year younger than Hamels was when his career with the Phillies ended. Ten months removed from his first World Series experience, in thick of another playoff race, Nola has plenty more of his Phillies career to write. Yet he is also in the last year of his contract, a grizzled vet who can’t quite wrap his head around the speed with which time flies.

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“It’s been so long ago,” Nola said. “I haven’t even thought about being a rookie in quite some time. The game has definitely changed. I feel like there were a lot of older guys. At times it feels like the game is getting younger right now. I just remember that I didn’t want to mess anything up. Just wanted to stay in line and not get in anybody’s way.”

He also remembers a message he got a couple of years later. The Phillies were in Arlington to face the Rangers in 2017. Hamels wanted to know if Nola wanted to get breakfast.

For an hour, they broke bread and caught up: on life, on baseball, on Philly.

“It was really cool,” Nola said. “An older guy like that reaching out to a younger guy? One hundred percent.”

However brief their time together, their legacies are intertwined. Hamels may have ridden off into the sunset, but his shadow still remains.