Major League Baseball

Baseball's 10-most important no-hitters

Published Oct. 6, 2010 1:00 a.m. ET

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Roy Halladay was acquired by the Philadelphia Phillies, the team proclaimed last winter, to start Game 1 of the postseason.

He did that, and then some on Wednesday night, becoming only the second pitcher to throw a playoff no-hitter in what was the first postseason start of his career. He became just the fifth pitcher in history to throw two no-hitters during the same season, the first since Nolan Ryan did it with the California Angels in 1973.

Halladay pitched a perfect game earlier this season, on May 29 at Florida. Mike DiMuro was the home plate umpire in that game. Strangely enough, DiMuro's father Lou was behind the plate when Jim Palmer of Baltimore no-hit Oakland in 1969.

The following are 10 other no-hitters that have some very special meaning in the history of the game.

1. DON LARSEN, NEW YORK YANKEES, 1956

Larsen pitched the only perfect game in World Series history in the Yankees 2-0 victory against the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series. After failing to get through the second inning of Game 2, despite being given a 6-0 lead, Larsen claimed he didn't even know he was starting Game 5 until he got to the ballpark and found the game ball in his glove. He didn't struggle in that one. He threw only 97 pitches and went to a three-ball count just once, to Pee Wee Reese in the first inning. After the game, a writer asked Yankee manager Casey Stengel if that was the best game Larsen ever pitched. "So far,’’ was Stengel's dead pan answer.

2. JOHNNY VANDER MEER, CINCINNATI REDS, 1938

Vander Meer no-hit the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbetts Field on June 15, 1938, in the first night game ever played in the major leagues. It also came just four days after Vander Meer no-hit the Boston Bees at Crosley Field. He became the only pitcher to throw back-to-back no-hitters and ran his hitless innings streak to a National League record 21 innings in his next start before Deb Garms of Boston singled in the fourth inning. With two out in the ninth inning against the Dodgers, Vander Meer got Leo Durocher to pop up and end the game with the bases loaded on a 2-2 pitch, one pitch after home plate umpire Bill Stewart admitted he missed what should have been a game-ending third strike.

3. NOLAN RYAN, TEXAS RANGERS, 1991

At the age of 44, on May 1, 1991, Ryan no-hitter the Oakland A's, making him the oldest pitcher to throw a no-hitter, extending his career record to seven no-no's, three more than Sandy Koufax, whose record Ryan broke in 1981 when he was with the Houston Astros. In No. 7, Ryan got the final out with a strikeout of Roberto Alomar, whose father Sandy was the second baseman in the two no-hitters Ryan threw for the Angels in 1973, including a July 15 game at Detroit in which Norm Cash went to the plate with two out in the ninth carrying a table leg. Ryan also threw no-hittrs with the Angels in 1974 and 1975.

4. MIKE SCOTT, HOUSTON ASTROS, 1996

Scott pitched the only no-hitter in a pennant-clinching victory, the Astros' 2-0 win against the San Francisco Giants on Sept. 25, 1996. He built the game around a dastardly split-fingered pitch, which he actually was taught by Giants manager Roger Craig during offseason workouts at a baseball school Craig ran in San Diego. Ironically, earlier in the season, in a 3-1 Giants win, Craig complained to umpires that Scott had to be scuffing baseballs to have so much movement on that split-fingered pitch. "I could never tell if he was actually scuffing the ball,’’ Craig later said. "I never found any evidence. I was just playing with his mind, trying to upset him.’’ In the no-hitter, Scott allowed three base runners and struck out 13, cementing the NL Cy Young Award.

5. JIM ABBOTT, NEW YORK YANKEES, 1993

With the Yankees battling Toronto for the AL East lead, and coming off being knocked out in the fourth inning with a 7-3 deficit at Cleveland in his previous start, Abbott no-hit the Indians in a 4-0 victory at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 4, 1993. Born without a right hand, Abbott had been a phenom who was a first-round draft choice of the Angels and went directly from the campus of Michigan to the big leagues. On this day, however, the left-hander created an emotional outcry for his success in beating the odds. He walked more batters (five) than he struck out (three), but induced 17 ground ball outs against a Cleveland lineup that featured six players hitting .298 or better.

6. HIDEO NOMO, LOS ANGELES DODGERS, 1996

Despite rains that forced the start of the game to be delayed two hours, and that left the field slippery enough that he worked out of the stretch from the first pitch he threw, Nomo became the first Japanese pitcher to throw a no-hitter in a Sept. 17, 1996, game against Colorado. Amazingly, he did it at Coors Field, in the park's second year of existence, six years before the humidor was installed to try and ease some of the hitter-friendly elements. The game ended shortly before midnight, Nomo having struck out eight and walked four. On April 4, 2001, he became one of five pitchers to throw two no-hitters. Pitching for Boston, he no-hit Baltimore in the earliest no-hitter ever thrown (in terms of the calendar).

7. DOCK ELLIS, PITTSBURGH PIRATES, 1970

Ellis was partying with friends in Los Angeles the afternoon of June 12, 1970, when he found out he was scheduled to pitch that night in San Diego. After scurrying to catch a shuttle flight to San Diego, he showed up and no-hit the Padres in the first game of a doubleheader. Fourteen years later, he revealed that he threw that no-hitter under the influence of LSD. He was far from in command, walking eight Padres while striking out only six. "I started having a crazy idea in the fourth inning that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire, and once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix, who to me was holding a guitar and swinging it over the plate,’’ Ellis is credited with saying in admitting the LSD usage.

8. KEN FORSCH, HOUSTON ASTROS, 1979

Forsch no-hit the Atlanta Braves in a 6-0 victory on April 7, 1979, 346 days after his brother Bob no-hit Philadelphia as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals, making the Forschs the first brothers to each throw one. Bob added a second no-hitter to his resume against Montreal on Sept. 26, 1983. Ken was making his first start in the 1979 season when he pitched his no-hitter, striking out three Braves and walking two, one of only 10 pitchers to have three or fewer strikeouts in a no-hitter. Brothers Melido and Pascual Perez both threw rain-shortened no-hitters, which keeps them off the official list. Pascual worked five shutout innings for Montreal in 1988, and two years later Melido went six no-hit innings for the Chicago White Sox.

9. DAVID CONE, NEW YORK YANKEES, 1999

Cone was perfect against Montreal on July 18, 1999, in the first no-hitter, much less perfect game, in interleague play history. There have been two additional interleague no-hitters since then – Justin Verlander of Detroit against Milwaukee on June 12, 2007, and Edwin Jackson with Arizona against Tampa Bay on June 25, 2010, making the Rays the first team since the 2001 San Diego Padres to be no-hit twice in a season. Cone's career faded after his no-hitter, as it also acted as the last shutout of his career. The game came on Yogi Berra Day, and in attendance were both Don Larsen and Berra, who caught Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series.

10. RANDY JOHNSON, ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS, 2004

At the age of 40, on May 18, 2004, Johnson became the oldest pitcher in history to pitch a perfect game, beating Atlanta 2-0. Johnson was three years, six months older than Cy Young was when Young (at the age of 37 years and one month) pitched a perfect game for Boston against the Philadelphia A's on May 5, 1904. Johnson's perfect game came 13 years and 50 weeks after he no-hit Detroit in a 2-0 win for Seattle, the longest time span between no-hitters for a pitcher in major-league history. Johnson struck out 13 in the perfect game, and his only three-ball count came in the second inning against Johnny Estrada, who fouled off three 3-2 pitches before striking out.

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