Like I said yesterday, in 1952 Virgil "Fire" Trucks threw 2 no-hitters. Baseball Digest did a great interview with Mr. Trucks about the two, found here. The first was against the Senators on May 15. According to this article it was also the 2nd no-no in Tigers history.
For good measure, Mr. Trucks then threw one against the Yankees on August 25. Now, any no-hitter is amazing. A no-hitter against this roster, however, is almost incomprehensible. I mean, if someone on the street told you that a guy had no-hit a Yankees team with Berra, Mantle, etc., on it, you'd probably assume he was joking.
Amazingly, his W-L record in 1952 was 5-19 with a 3.97 ERA, or 95 ERA+. It goes without saying that with a little bit more run support, that season might have been a lot different.
Like I said yesterday, Trucks also threw 4 no-hitters in the minors.
When you dig deeper into the stats, Trucks had some pretty dominant years during a period that had quite a few dominant lineups. 1949 might have been his best, when he led the league in K's, had a 2.81 ERA, 148 ERA+, 6 shutout, 4 saves (!), and a 1.21 WHIP. That was against an AL with guys like Dimaggio and Williams sowing terror wherever they went. I'll let the rest of the seasons speak for themselves, and they say that Mr. Trucks had some monster years.
Over his 17-year career Trucks went 177-135 with a 3.39 ERA, 116 ERA+. He led the league in K's in 1949 with 153 and had 124 CG for his career. I know that was a different era, but that's over 1/3 of the games he started. Almost unthinkable today.
Anyway, don't forget to comment at the original post here to enter the giveaway, and that all you need to do is be a follower of the site. I'm off to brew some beer.
Have a great one!
I witnessed the No-hitter at Yankee Stadium as a 12 year old. THEY CHANGED A play from a hit to an error on a ball hit by Rizzuto that was mis handled and called a hit. It was in fact an error and should have been called such
ReplyDeleteBob Barrett
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Trucks at a Baseball Alumni outing I used to do at Feather Sound Country Club in Clearwater,m FL
Hey Bob, thanks for sharing that! It really must have been something to see that as a kid. It's also awesome you got to meet Mr. Trucks in person. I imagine he's a fun person to be around and has a lot of stories to tell!
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