10 Facts About Baseball No-Hitters

1. Alva Lee “Bobo” Holloman is the only pitcher in modern baseball history to hurl a no-hitter in his first big league start. On May 6, 1953, as a member of the St. Louis Browns, Holloman shut down the Philadelphia Athletics for his first big league win and his only no-hitter. He never threw another complete game and was out of baseball by the end of the season.

2. Nolan Ryan has the most career no-hitters with seven. Seven! Sandy Koufax is second with four.

3. Johnny Vander Meer of the Cincinnati Reds is the only major league pitcher to throw back-to-back no hitters. Vander Meer no-hit the Boston Braves on June 11, 1938. Four days later, he shut down the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field.

4. Ken Johnson of the Houston Colt .45s (now the Astros) is the only pitcher to throw a complete game no-hitter and lose. Johnson hurled his no-no against the Cincinnati Reds, but he lost the game in the ninth inning, when a 23-year old kid named Pete Rose reached on an error, advanced on a fielder’s choice and then scored on another error. The Reds won the game by a score of 1-0.

5. The most number of pitchers to combine for a no-hitter is six. That happened on June 11, 2003 when six hurlers for the Houston Astros held a fierce New York Yankees lineup hitless for the entire game, an 8-0 Houston win. The six pitchers were Roy Oswalt, Peter Munro, Kirk Saarloos, Brad Lidge, Octavio Dotel, and Billy Wagner.

6. Thirteen pitchers have lost no-hitters in extra innings. The most recent player to accomplish this “almost-feat” was Pedro Martinez, who pitched nine no-hit innings for the Montreal Expos against the San Diego Padres on June 3, 1995. But in the bottom of the tenth inning, Bip Roberts led off with a double, foiling Pedro’s no-hit bid. Martinez was lifted for reliever Mel Rojas, who got the final three outs and preserved the win for Martinez and the Expos.

7. There are only four Major League Baseball teams who have never had a pitcher throw a no-hitter. They are the New York Mets, San Diego Padres, Colorado Rockies and Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Two of the best Met pitchers in recent times, Dwight Gooden and David Cone, pitched no-nos later in their careers as members of the cross-town New York Yankees.

8. Bob Feller of the Cleveland indians is the only pitcher to hurl a no-no on Opening Day. He accomplished the feat on April 16, 1940 against the Chicago White Sox.

9. In the history of the majors, 255 no-hitters have been thrown.

10. The Chicago Cubs have not had a no-hitter pitched against them in 42 years. That is the longest current streak in the big leagues. The all-time record is held by the New York Yankees, who went 45 years without being no-hit (between 1958 and the aformentioned 2003 no-no thrown by six Astros pitchers).

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