{"id":248,"date":"2018-08-13T17:28:46","date_gmt":"2018-08-13T22:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/haughtcorner.com\/?page_id=248"},"modified":"2023-05-30T11:11:40","modified_gmt":"2023-05-30T16:11:40","slug":"larry-dierkers-no-hitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haughtcorner.com\/?p=248","title":{"rendered":"Larry Dierker’s no-hitter"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 9, 1976<\/em><\/h4>\n

Larry Dierker<\/span> made his major-league debut on his 18th birthday in September 1964 \"Dierkeras a hard-throwing righthanded pitcher for the Houston Colt .45s. Twelve years later \u2013 July 9, 1976 \u2013 he threw his only MLB no-hitter against the Montreal Expos.<\/p>\n

By then, Dierker was a much-different pitcher than the young kid who struck out Willie Mays in the first inning of that first game. Shoulder and elbow injuries left him in near-constant pain when he pitched, and the blazing fastball and hard slider were pretty much consigned to memory. And when he did pitch, he threw nearly sidearm instead of overhand, to reduce the pain and still be effective.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think I would ever do it,\u201d he said after the game.<\/p>\n

“It was like a gift from God.”<\/span> \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 — Larry Dierker, about his late-career no-hitter<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Near-misses earlier in his career made him think his chances to pitch a no-hitter may have come and gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had one in New York that was a perfect game into the ninth inning,\u201d he remembered, \u201cbut I gave up a couple of hits and lost the game 1-0. I had another one in the ninth in Atlanta, and Felix Millan got an infield hit with two outs [in 1969]. I was only 24 years old and I figured I would have more chances to pitch a no-hitter. But by the time it happened in 1976, I certainly wasn\u2019t in the same frame of mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt meant more to me, because it never occurred to me that I would pitch a no-hitter at that juncture, because of the shape my arm was in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t have the kind of overpowering stuff that I could have occasionally when I \"Dierkerwas younger, and I didn\u2019t think it would be possible, so I really felt blessed to have that happen — because after coming close a couple of times, then being all worn-out when it happened, it was like a gift from God.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I took the mound that day, I was determined to mix my pitches and forget about trying to throw the ball by the hitters,\u201d he said in This Ain\u2019t Brain Surgery<\/em>. \u201cI felt I had been overthrowing, trying to prove that I could still throw hard. I had made too many mistakes going for velocity over location.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plan worked well early in the game, but as the innings went by, Dierker noticed he had an especially good fastball that day: it was sailing, and he could throw it past the hitters.<\/p>\n

Enter Plan B.<\/p>\n

\u201cI began to think about the no-hitter in the seventh inning,\u201d he said. \u201cI had trouble in the fifth with my control (for the game, he walked four and struck out eight) but when I came out in the sixth, suddenly I had my stuff again.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the rest of the game, all I did was rush it in there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

— Dierker, on pitching the late innings with only his fastball<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The memory of those near-misses led Dierker to use his fastball exclusively in the late innings. He had lost the no-hitter against the Braves on a slider.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was determined to get outs on strikeouts, popups, or fly balls,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

In the ninth inning, he struck out Pepe Mangual, then fell behind Jim Lyttle 2-0 before he struck Lyttle out on three consecutive fastballs.<\/p>\n

Up came Mike Jorgensen, a hitter who had given Dierker trouble in previous games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was determined to go with my bread-and-butter, which was the fastball,\u201d Dierker said.<\/p>\n

The final out \u201ccame more on luck than design,\u201d Dierker said. The first-pitch fastball rode up-and-in on Jorgensen, and he got on top of the ball, hitting a grounder to first-baseman Bob Watson, who took the ball to the bag himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew Jorgensen was going to hit the ball to me,\u201d Watson said. \u201cThere was no way I was going to risk making a throw to Larry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dierker leaped in the air as the final out was made, and he landed on first base.\"Dierker<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of luck in it,\u201d Dierker said later. \u201c[Roger] Clemens and [Steve] Carlton never did it. They faced a million batters \u2013 Cy Young Awards, and all that. Ken Holtzman threw a no-hitter without a single strikeout. What are the odds of 27 balls being hit, and none finding a hole?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my game, there were a couple of good plays, but nothing extraordinary,\u201d he remembered.<\/p>\n

The no-hitter got Dierker a $2,500 raise. Not bad for a game where the pregame plan was scrapped early on.<\/p>\n

\u201cA reporter asked me after the game when I knew I had a no-hitter, and I said, \u2018after the first inning,’\u201d he said. \u201cThe way I have been pitching, I was trying to remember the last time I got through the first inning without giving up a hit. I went back in and thought, \u2018this is pretty cool. I didn\u2019t have trouble in the first inning today.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t throw an off-speed pitch after the fourth inning, which is exactly the opposite of the strategy I was determined to employ at the beginning of the game,\u201d he wrote in This Ain\u2019t Brain Surgery<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July 9, 1976 Larry Dierker made his major-league debut on his 18th birthday in September 1964 as a hard-throwing righthanded pitcher for the Houston Colt .45s. Twelve years later \u2013 July 9, 1976 \u2013 he […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-248","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-a-moment-in-time"},"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haughtcorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haughtcorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haughtcorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haughtcorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haughtcorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/haughtcorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4212,"href":"https:\/\/haughtcorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions\/4212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haughtcorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haughtcorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haughtcorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}