No No-Nos

I am over halfway through the 1991 APBA baseball replay and I've only had one no-hitter so far during the season. For some, rolling a no-hit game is extremely rare, so having one after playing   1,100 games may not be so odd.

But I've had several no hitters during the past 19 years that I've been doing APBA season replays. Maybe it's the way I roll the dice; maybe it's pure luck and I have the right pitcher with the right rating on the mound when batters face him. Maybe it's that I've played thousands and thousands of games over the past two decades and, simply because of statistical occurrence, no-hit games are bound to happen. You know, that ol' put an infinite number of monkeys in a room with an infinite amount of typewriters and one chimp eventually will pound out the works of Shakespeare over time.

In this 1991 season, though, a no-hit game is as scarce as a clean, steroid-free Jose Canseco stepping up to the plate for the As. And that may be why the no-hitters are so few. The APBA game company cards each player, giving him numbers to replicate his actual seasons. I've noticed at least one or two starting batters on several teams have a '7' on their cards, which is a pretty much a universal number for a base hit regardless of who is pitching most of the time. Put 'em in and they're apt to get a hit.

These 1991 games are not hitfests, though. There are very few games where teams score in the double digits. Instead, teams average from eight to 12 hits a game. Scores like 5-3 are common.

Bob Tewksbury of the St. Louis Cardinals has the only no-hitter so far in this replay. He walked two and struck out five in San Francisco, leading the Cards to a 4-0 victory. His two walks came in the first inning.

Tewks was no Johnny Vander Meer in his next game. Vander Meer, fans know, tossed consecutive no-hit games in June 1938 when he beat Boston and then Brooklyn. Instead, Tewskbury went six innings against San Diego, giving up six runs and 10 hits before he was mercifully relieved.

I've had a few games get close. Chris Nabholz of the hapless Montreal Expos was perfect through four innings in a recent contest against the Mets. He lost his bid when Howard Johnson blooped a single in the fifth and then Nabholz shut down New York, leading the Expos to one of their few wins of the season.

Dennis Martinez, also of the Expos, took a no-hitter into the eighth inning before giving up a hit to the Cubs.

I wanted to compare similar seasons to see if the rarity of no-hit games was common. The last comparable season I did to 1991 was 1981 a few years ago. In that replay season, I saw eight no-hitters. Ron Guidry shut down the Rangers; Doc Medich led Texas over the White Sox; Tom Seaver of the Reds edged Houston, 1-0, in 10 innings; Burt Hooton of the Dodgers shut down the Cubs and his teammate, Jerry Reuss, no-hit Atlanta; Rick Rhoden of the Pirates didn't give up a base hit to Cincinnati; John Denny no-hit Minnesota for Cleveland; and Cubs' pitcher Doug Bird shut down Houston.

In the 1981 replay, I averaged a no-hitter every 263.25 games.

I looked back on the past 100 games in the 1991 replay to see when teams got their first hit of the game. Visting teams recorded their initial hit in the first inning of a game 48 times. The home team did the same in 41 games. Visitors got their first hit of a game 17 times in the second inning, compared to 18 times for the homers. Basically, 65 percent of the time, visiting teams will get a hit by the second inning and the home team will get one 59 percent of the time in the first two frames.

Tonight, I reached Game No. 1107 in the 1991 replay. If I stay on this pace, I'll be lucky to have two no-hit games for the year. In the real 1991 season, five pitchers tossed no-hitters, including Nolan Ryan who hurled his seventh of his career.

I'll keep rolling, and I'll get anxious if a pitcher gets into the later innings without giving up a hit. I know talking about a no-hitter in progress is bad luck, but they are so far and few in this replay season, that I'll have to take notice when one nears.