Two No-Hitters in a Row
VanderMeer's Unique Baseball Feat
Johnny VanderMeer, a second-year lefthander for the Cincinnati Reds, hurled two consecutive no-hit games in 1938. This feat by a pitcher who lost more games than he won in a 13-year career has never been equalled.
No-hit games are rare, but there have been well over 200 in major league baseball history. Several pitchers have achieved them more than once, with Nolan Ryan topping the list with seven, Sandy Koufax with four, and Cy Young and Bob Feller with three each. Four have even done it twice in one season, but VanderMeer stands alone with no-hitters in consecutive games. With so many records by baseball greats Babe Ruth (home runs), Ty Cobb (hits and stolen bases), and Walter Johnson (consecutive scoreless innings) having fallen over the years, it is remarkable that VanderMeer's accomplishment has remained beyond the reach of such pitching superstars as Ryan, Feller, Koufax, Warren Spahn, Bob Gibson, and Randy Johnson over seven decades.
Vandy beat the Boston Bees, earlier and later known as the Braves, 3-0, on June 11, 1938. Four days later, in the first night game played at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, he took a 6-0 lead into the ninth inning against the Dodgers. After getting the first out, the lefthander suffered a most untimely wild spell, walking the bases loaded. Manager Bill McKechnie gave him a breathing spell with a brief conference at the mound and then VanderMeer proceeded to get two easy outs and make history.
Ironically, it was another Cincinnati Reds pitcher, Ewell Blackwell, who came closest to matching VanderMeer's exploit only nine years later, and against the same opposition. In June, 1947, Blackwell was gaining national attention in a sensational season that would include 16 consecutive victories and an overall record of 22-8. On June 18, he no-hit hthe Braves and, in his next start against the Dodgers, he got through eight-and-one-third innings of hitless ball. This time, however, instead of walks it was two hits that stopped Blackwell two outs short of matching the record of VanderMeer. The latter, now a ten-year veteran of the Reds' staff, was in the dugout ready to congratulate Blackwell.
VanderMeer posted a lifetime record of 119-121, all with the Reds, who finished in the second division regularly after two pennants and several high finishes early in his career. He had a very respectable 3.44 earned run average and five seasons of 15 or more wins, with a high of 18 in 1942. But it was those two brilliant performances in 1938--and the frustration of efforts by all others since--that gives Johnny VanderMeer a unique place in major league baseball history.
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