Friday night the Dodgers pitched 4 different dudes who combined to no hit the Padres (click here for story.) It was only the 12th combined no hitter in MLB history.
It brought back a memory for me of the Orioles being one of those 12 teams to have been involved in a combined no hitter. The weird thing about the Orioles’ game was that they lost it even though their opponents did not get a hit.
I remember being down at my Grandparents’ house on that Sunday afternoon and listening to the Orioles game on the car radio. I remember both my folks going in to visit Miss Hattie and Granddaddy Ridgell and getting on me for wanting to stay in the car and finish listening to the game. As a compromise solution, I rushed into the house between innings, said hello and then hurried back out in the car to resume listening to the game.
For the life of me, I can not remember what the occasion was for us to have been visiting Grandma and Grandpa as a family on that Sunday afternoon. It wasn’t Easter Sunday and neither was it Grandaddys’ nor Miss Hattie’s birthdays. For Buzzy to have gotten someone to watch the store for him and to drag all of us down to the home place on Long Neck Road, it must gave been something special. But I sure don’t remember what it was or could have been.
However, I do clearly recall sitting in the old car anguishing throughout that 9th inning as the Tigers came from behind to score two runs on 3 walks, a wild pitch and an error. Steve Barber pitched 8 and 2/3 innings of no hit ball before turning it over to Stu Miller to get Detroit’s final out. The Orioles were unable to score any runs in their half of the 9th and lost 2-1.
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| https://www.sportingcharts.com/articles/mlb/history-of-combined-no-hitters.aspx |
And here is the play by play of that top of the 9th inning:
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| https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL196704301.shtml |
Since he pitched a record 7 no hitters over his career, this ode to Nolan seemed appropriate: