Ron Necciai Strikes Out 27 Batters in a Nine-Inning Game

 

After the 1952 season, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues published a history of minor-league baseball, beginning with the association’s formation in 1901. The book included a list of the 50 most outstanding records for performances other than season records. The editors didn’t have to do much research to find the number-one performance on the list. Details of the performance, which occurred early in the 1952 season, were likely still fresh for the editors.

Ron Necciai, a 19-year-old pitcher for the Bristol (Virginia) Twins of the Class-D Appalachian League, had set a record “not remotely approached in the history of baseball.”1

More than 70 years later, Necciai’s record of 27 strikeouts in a nine-inning minor-league game still stood.

Necciai was in his third season in the Pittsburgh Pirates farm system in 1952. He signed with the Pirates in June of 1950 right after his graduation from Monongahela (Pennsylvania) High School and days before his 18th birthday.

His professional career almost ended before it started. Necciai, who was signed as a first baseman, was made a pitcher after he reported to Salisbury of the Class-D North Carolina State League.

In his first two professional appearances, he walked six and allowed seven runs in three innings. The Pirates reassigned Necciai to Shelby of the Class-D Western Carolina League. After one appearance for Shelby -which saw him allow three runs without retiring a hitter -Necciai left the team and returned home to Pennsylvania.

“Baseball was never really a passion of mine,” Necciai said. “To be honest, I never did have any passions. Baseball was just something to do. I was just an average kid drifting through, and it didn’t seem to make much sense to stay.”2

The Pirates didn’t give up on Necciai. The team stayed in touch with him and persuaded him to give baseball another try in 1951.

After spring training in Deland, Florida, the Pirates again assigned Necciai to Salisbury. He struggled, with seven consecutive losses and he again considered quitting baseball. But he rebounded with four consecutive victories. With Salisbury, he struck out 111 batters in 106 innings, but walked 84 and surrendered 91 hits. Despite a 4-9 record with a 4.84 ERA, the Pirates promoted Necciai in July to New Orleans of the Double-A Southern League.

In his debut with New Orleans, on July 29, Necciai allowed just two runs and five hits in seven innings in a 2-0 loss to Mobile in New Orleans.3 That outing was the highlight for Necciai in his time with New Orleans. He finished 1-5 with an 8.45 ERA in eight appearances with the Pelicans. His season ended with a twisted ankle near the end of August.4

After the 1951 season, Necciai took part in the Pirates’ fall instructional camp in Deland. He showed progress on the mound and the Pirates invited him to their big-league spring-training camp in San Bernardino, California.

On March 18 in San Bernardino, Necciai pitched five shutout innings against the defending National League champion New York Giants. He allowed just two hits -an infield single and a bloop single to short center field.

Late in 1952 spring training, Necciai was sidelined by an ulcer. After treatment, which included a brief hospital stay, he was assigned to Class-D Bristol. Necciai was nearly unhittable in his time with Bristol, allowing just 10 hits in 43 innings of work, during which time he struck out 109 opposing batters and recorded an 0.46 earned-run average.

On May 1, the Twins opened the season with a 9-3 loss to the Kingsport Cherokees at Kingsport. The next night the teams met at Shaw Stadium in Bristol for the Twins’ home opener, and Necciai was Bristol’s starting pitcher. He allowed just two hits and struck out a ballpark record 20 in the Twins’ 4-0 victory. Necciai’s 20 strikeouts were one shy of the Appalachian League record set by Bob Kuhlman in 1945.

In his second start for the Twins -on May 7 at Shaw Stadium against the Pulaski Phillies -Necciai struck out 19 and allowed six hits in a complete-game 7-4 victory.

Three days later at Shaw Stadium, Necciai made a relief appearance and saved Bristol’s 5-4 victory over the Johnson City Cardinals.

He entered the game in the top of the sixth after Johnson City had scored two runs and had the bases loaded with nobody out. He struck out three batters in a row to end the threat. In the next three innings -the seventh through the ninth -he struck out eight more batters for a total of 11 in four innings. He didn’t allow a hit and walked just one. One Johnson City hitter reached on an error in the eighth inning and Johnson City’s final out was a groundout to Necciai.

In his first three outings of the season, Necciai had struck out 50 in 22 innings. His fourth outing was one for the record books. His performance against the Welch Miners on May 13 in Bristol “left 1,183 thoroughly chilled spectators practically speechless.”5

On a damp Tuesday evening, a half-full Shaw Stadium gathered to watch the first-place Twins (8-3) take on the third-place Miners (6-4). Necciai was mesmerizing from the start. He struck out three in the first, with the third being thrown out at first after catcher Harry Dunlop dropped the third strike.

Necciai struck out two in the second inning with the middle out coming on a groundout to shortstop. After Welch’s leadoff hitter in the third inning reached on an error, Necciai struck out the next three hitters.

In the fourth inning, Necciai hit the leadoff hitter but then struck out the next three hitters.

He struck out the side in the fifth and sixth innings and then opened the seventh with two strikeouts for his 11 consecutive strikeout. After walking the third hitter in the seventh, he recorded another strikeout for the third out.

When he took the mound for the eighth inning, the Twins had staked him to a 7-0 lead. He struck out the side in the eighth inning. The ninth inning had a little drama. The leadoff hitter hit a pop foul between home and first base, which wasn’t caught. The official scorer gave catcher Dunlop an error but the hitter became strikeout victim number 24 after being called out on strikes.

The next hitter, a pinch-hitter, struck out for the second out in the inning. Necciai’s 25th strikeout tied the professional baseball record for strikeouts in a nine-inning game set by Hooks loft, who struck out 25 while pitching for Paragould of the Northeast Arkansas League in June 1946. Five years earlier, in July 1941, loft had struck out 30 in a 16-inning game.

With two outs, Billy Hammond became strikeout number 26, but reached first base after the pitch got past Dunlop. Dunlop denied that he had let the pitch get by him to give Necciai a chance at number 27. Dunlop said, “He had a great curveball, an old-fashioned drop. A lot of them dropped in the dirt. He wasn’t easy to handle.”6

Bob Kendrick, Welch’s cleanup hitter, struck out to end the game and finish off the no-hitter and the Twins’ 7-0 victory. Necciai’s 27 strikeouts in a no-hitter broke the previous record of 20 strikeouts in a no-hitter by Darrell “Cy” Blanton in 1933 while pitching for St. Joseph of the Western League.

Of the 31 hitters Necciai faced, four had reached base. Of the 27 strikeouts, 17 were swinging and 10 were called.

In an interview in 2022, Necciai said he didn’t know how many he had struck out until his manager (George Detore) and Dunlop told him after the game.

“I’ve heard all kinds of things,” Necciai said. “I’ve heard the fans in the stands were chanting 25, 26. I don’t remember that. I don’t pay attention to the fans. There’s a guy down there between me and Dunlop with a bat.”7

On May 21, in his final outing for Bristol, Necciai struck out 24 and allowed just two hits in Bristol’s 7-1 victory over Kingsport. After that outing, the Pirates promoted him to Burlington-Graham of the Class-B Carolina League.

In six appearances with Bristol, Necciai was 4-0 with a 0.42 ERA. In 43 innings he had allowed just two earned runs and 10 hits. He had walked 20 and struck out 109.

Necciai’s no-hitter was the first of five for the Bristol pitching staff in 1952 -three of them by one pitcher.

On May 22, five days after Necciai’s gem, 18-year-old Bill Bell threw the first of back-to-back no-hitters, striking out 18 in a 1-0 victory over Kingsport. In his next start, on May 26, Bell struck out 20 while no-hit-ting the Bluefield Blue-Grays, 4-0.

On August 25, Bell no-hit Bluefield again. The next night Frank Ramsey also no-hit Bluefield.

In 18 appearances with Burlington, Necciai was 7-9 with a 1.57 ERA. He allowed 73 hits and struck out 172 in 126 innings.8

Both Necciai and Bell joined the Pirates in 1952.

Necciai made his major-league debut on August 10, when he allowed seven runs in six innings, striking out three against the Chicago Cubs in Pittsburgh. He made three more appearances before earning his only major-league victory on August 24. He allowed just two earned runs and seven hits in the Pirates’ 4-3 victory over the Boston Braves in the first game of a doubleheader in Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field.

In his final outing of the season, in the Pirates’ season finale on September 28 in Cincinnati, Necciai allowed two runs in seven innings with a major-league career-high eight strikeouts in a no-decision in the Pirates’ 3-2 loss to the Reds.

In his 12 appearances for the Pirates, who were 42-112 in 1952, Necciai was 1-6 with 31 strikeouts in 54% innings.

After the season, Necciai was drafted into the US Army. He spent 65 days in the Army before receiving a medical discharge in March 1953 because of an ulcer. After the discharge, he began preparing for the 1953 season.

Back in Burlington, Necciai made his season debut in late May of 1953 but after several outings, he was sidelined because of a pinched nerve. He didn’t pitch in 1954 and tried a comeback in 1955. He made five minor-league appearances before ending his career in May 1955 at the age of 23.

“Finally, one doctor at Johns Hopkins told me to quit baseball and go find a job in a gas station,” Necciai said. “It was tough to accept at the time. You look around and you think, ‘My God, can’t they heal me?’ Young people heal.”9

Necciai eventually got over the initial disappointment of the premature end to his baseball career. He went on to a successful career in business as a manufacturer’s representative selling fishing and hunting equipment. In retirement, Necciai was living in Belle Vernon, Pa., near his hometown of Monongahela.

“I gave baseball a nickel and got a million dollars back,” said Necciai.10

JOEL RIPPEL, a Minnesota native and graduate of the University of Minnesota, is the author or co-author of 12 books on Minnesota sports history and has contributed as a writer or editor to 26 published by SABR.

 

Acknowledgments

This article was edited by Thomas Rathkamp and fact-checked by Mike Huber.

 

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com, Retrosheet.org, and SABR.org.

 

Notes

1 L.H. Addington, Robert L. Finch, and Ben M. Morgan, eds, The Story of Minor League Baseball, 1901-1952 (Columbus, Ohio: The Stoneman Press, 1952), 234-

2 Warren Corbett. “Ron Necciai,” SABR Biography Project.

3 “White Sox Sell Rothblatt to Memphis,” Nashville Banner, July 30, 1951: 10.

4 George K. Leonard, “Five Clubs Fight for 2-3-4 Spots,” The Sporting News, September 5, 1951: 29. Baseball-Reference.com does not show Necciai as playing with New Orleans. Statistics from Necciai’s time with the Pelicans come from Warren Corbett’s biography of Necciai.

5 Jimmy Carson, “Necciai Fans 27, Hurls No-hitter,” Bristol Herald-Courier, May 14, 1952: 1.

6 Corbett.

7 Jonathan Abrams, “His Night of Baseball Fame Has Lingered for 70 Years,” New York Times, August 17, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/17/sports/baseball/fame-baseball-ron-necciai.html.

8 Necciai’s statistics with Burlington are from James Seiko, Minor League All-Star Teams, 1922-62 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., Publishers), 2007.

9 Corbett.

10 Corbett.