Nine Up, Nobody Noticed
A record nobody wrote down, a feat nobody repeated, a game moved by the moon, and the book that tried to settle it all.
Ed. 08.28.26
Nine Up, Nobody Noticed (1884)
Mickey Welch took the mound for the New York Gothams and struck out the first nine Cleveland batters he faced. It is still the most consecutive strikeouts to open a game. Nobody credited it, because the ninth man reached first when the catcher let the third strike get past him, and writers of that era would not score a strikeout if the batter reached base. The feat sat unrecognized for 57 years, until historian Harry Simmons dug into the game in 1941, the same year Welch died. He went 39 and 21 that season and finished with 307 wins, and he never knew.
Two Games, One Arm, Zero Strikeouts (1926)
Cleveland rookie Dutch Levsen pitched both ends of a doubleheader against Boston and won them both, 6 to 1 and 5 to 1. He did not strike out a single batter all day. Cleveland ran out the identical lineup in both games. Those were the 15th and 16th wins of his career, and he collected only five more before finishing at 21 and 26. No pitcher has won both halves of a doubleheader since.
The Sun Rearranges the Schedule (1932)
A total solar eclipse was due over New England on August 31, so the Red Sox and Indians moved that game up three days and played a doubleheader instead. Boston won the added game 4 to 3 in eleven innings before ten thousand at Fenway. Those Red Sox were 36 and 91 at the time, headed for 43 and 111, still the worst season in franchise history. They got a free win out of the solar system.
Six and a Half Pounds of Everybody (1969)
Bowie Kuhn held up The Baseball Encyclopedia for photographers in New York. Set in type by computer, it carried the full record of every man who ever played a major league game. In 1981 researcher Pete Palmer found a 1910 game counted twice in Ty Cobb's totals. The commissioner refused the correction. Baseball Reference and Retrosheet say 4,189. MLB says 4,191. Still.
