RICHMOND, Va. -- My oh my. Tough week for the PBC, facing issues far more serious than I feel comfortable discussing here.
Still, I’m not quite ready to stop drawing baseball cartoons for the year, so I’ll look to the past…in this case, the distant past…and bring you the tale of the Pirates’ first no-no, delivered by the Buccos’ phenom of 1907: Nick Maddox.
When Maddox took the mound that Sept. 20, having authored two dominant performances over the Cardinals, he was already being touted as a star-in-the-making … but the young rookie was just getting warmed up. He would not surrender a single hit against Brooklyn, and remained perfectly cool despite the Superbas managing a run on two ill-timed throwing errors. By game’s end, he’d pulled off the first no-hitter in franchise history, and was the talk of the organization.
The next day’s Pittsburgh Press summed it up nicely: “Did you see yesterday’s game? No? Well, you missed the treat of the season."
Maddox would finish the season 5-1, and win 23 games in 1908. In 1909, he was part of a Pirates pitching staff that won the World Series, but by 1910 arm problems forced him out of the big leagues for good at the age of just 23.
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ROB ULLMAN / DKPS[/caption]
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