Servais first met Kile in the Astros’ instructional league in 1988. There were all those (close) plays being made behind Darryl that night, but he was just sort of in his little zone with his catcher.” “Looking back at that game now … I think that it was beautiful to have something like that happen between them, for Darryl to do that and to have Scott with him,” Flynn Jensen, Kile’s widow, told The Athletic last week. You can’t see Servais’ face in the painting, but you can be sure he is smiling, too. The original painting still hangs in the Astros’ clubhouse. Kile is smiling, his arms wrapped around his friend. It shows Servais the moment he reached Kile after the no-hitter. On a shelf in Servais’ office at Safeco Field, there’s a print of a painting that noted Houston artist Opie Otterstad created shortly after the game. Kile is never far from Servais’ mind, because Servais, the current Mariners manager, won’t allow it. It’s what he had it’s what they had: their journey, their friendship and that perfect night 25 years ago. That’s not how Servais prefers to remember his friend, though: Not what he, Servais, lost. It’s been over 16 years since Kile died in his sleep inside an 11th-floor hotel room in Chicago, the victim of a heart attack. We were still in the game shirts we wore under our jerseys.” “We have a glass of champagne in our hands, and Darryl has an ice pack on his shoulder. “I still have a picture in my office at home from that night,” Servais said. In others, they couldn’t have been more the same. In some ways, they couldn’t have been more different. Servais was Midwest through and through, unassuming and reserved. Their relationship was born years earlier in the minor leagues Kile was the kid from Southern California who oozed fearless confidence. One of the best perks of the 1993 season for Kile was having batterymate Servais along for the ride. He’d shown flashes of greatness, though this was the first time he harnessed it into nine tidy innings of dominance. Kile, 24 at the time, won 15 games for the 1993 Astros, a breakout season that included his a trip to the All-Star Game. “Luck was on my side tonight,” Kile told reporters. Long after that mob subsided and the Astros returned to the clubhouse, Kile, with his undershirt drenched in equal parts sweat and champagne, stood in front of his locker and tried his best to explain his 85-pitch masterpiece. Servais was the first to arrive, wrapping his arms around Kile in a bearhug, a moment that will forever be etched in Servais’ mind for a lot of reasons. He was right, and when Servais clutched the ball after Walker swung through it, a mob of teammates immediately engulfed Kile on the mound. “That last pitch was a curveball no one on this side of Earth could’ve hit,” Walker would tell reporters after the game.
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