June 30, 1908: Cy Young throws his third no-hitter and drives in half of Boston’s eight runs

Cy Young pitched the first no-hitter of his career on September 18, 1897, for the National League’s Cleveland Spiders. His second was a perfect game for the American League’s Boston Americans on May 5, 1904. His third no-hitter was against the New York Highlanders on June 30, 1908 – and it was the second time in weeks that he had missed a second perfect game by just one batter.

Coming into Young’s start against Highlanders, neither New York nor Boston was doing particularly well. The Highlanders, playing at Hilltop Park, were 26-35 and seventh in the AL standings, 11 games behind the first-place St. Louis Browns. The Red Sox – in their first season playing under that name – were 28-37 and also 11 games behind, ahead of New York by just five percentage points. Just five days earlier, on June 25, New York manager Clark Griffith had been forced to resign and Kid Elberfeld had been named manager.1

Longtime big-league catcher Deacon McGuire was Boston’s manager (though he, too, was relieved of his position in late August.)2 The 41-year-old Young, who had a 10-5 overall record and a 1-1 mark against New York, was the oldest pitcher in the major leagues. He had pitched complete games in 14 of his first 15 starts of 1908, including a 13-inning 1-0 win over the Washington Nationals in his most recent outing, on June 25. Young scattered 10 hits in that game, but on May 30 he had nearly thrown a perfect game against the Nationals in the first game of a doubleheader, facing just 28 batters and allowing only a sixth-inning single to Jerry Freeman.

Rube Manning was Elberfeld’s choice as starting pitcher on June 30. Manning was a rookie, having appeared in just one 1907 game. He had started the 1908 season 7-2 before losing his last three decisions. He had shut out the Red Sox in Boston on May 8.

Manning didn’t last long in his matchup with Young. The New York Times didn’t mince words, suggesting the possible use of quotation marks around the word “pitcher” to describe any of New York’s three pitchers in the game. Of the starter, the paper wrote, “Manning was so wild his reformation was despaired of after an inning and a half.”3

The first batter Manning faced was left fielder Jack Thoney. He hit him with a pitch. Denny Sullivan flied out to right. The “pain-crazed” Thoney then “got himself out between bases and sought the restful bench,” reported the New York Times.4 He’d been caught off first base and was tagged out in a rundown.5

With two outs, Manning threw 12 consecutive balls, loading the bases with Amby McConnell, Doc Gessler, and Frank LaPorte “which, we beg to submit, is going some.”6 First baseman Bob Unglaub then singled in McConnell. It was a 1-0 game, and Manning was fortunate to escape further damage.

In bottom of the first, Young walked the Highlanders’ leadoff batter, second baseman Harry Niles. Willie Keeler popped up to Unglaub at first base. George Moriarty did the same. Niles then tried to steal second but was thrown out by Young’s favorite catcher, Lou Criger, to second baseman McConnell.

With one out in the top of the second, Young singled to center field (some papers said it was to right). Gavvy Cravath – who had taken over for Thoney – singled to left, and Sullivan lined a shot to right, a single off Keeler’s glove. McConnell hit a fly ball to Jake Stahl in left field, and Young tagged and scored. It was 2-0, and Elberfeld called on left-hander Doc Newton to relieve Manning. 

The lead was more than enough for Young. After the second inning, noted the Boston Globe, “only five balls were hit out of the diamond” by the New Yorkers, meaning balls hit to the outfield.7

The closest to a hit for the Highlanders – often called the Yankees in newspaper coverage –  may have been center fielder Charlie Hemphill’s long fly to left field in the bottom of the second, “but Cravath made a fine catch of the offering.”8 Criger fielded a ball in front of the plate and threw out Neal Ball. Young struck out Stahl.

Young doubled the Red Sox lead by knocking in two runs in the third inning. Unglaub walked. Shortstop Heinie Wagner reached on a ball pitcher Newton mishandled. Criger sacrificed the runners to second and third, Newton to Moriarty. Young singled to center and drove in both baserunners for a 4-0 lead.

For New York, third baseman Wid Conroy’s liner to left in the bottom of the third was the hardest-hit ball of the game, caught by Cravath “by running out to the fence.”9

McConnell led off the fourth with a single to left. Gessler singled to center, McConnell going first to third. Elberfeld turned to his third pitcher, rookie Joe Lake, who pitched through game’s end.10 LaPorte hit into a 6-4 force play, McConnell scoring.

Boston failed to score in the fifth, the only runner to reach being Wagner with a leadoff walk. Young fielded a bunt by Ball in the bottom of the fifth and flipped to first with his left hand.

In the sixth, the Red Sox got back in the scoring column, adding one more run to make it 6-0. Sullivan singled past shortstop and was sacrificed to second. Gessler grounded out to second, Sullivan taking third. LaPorte reached on an infield hit, on which Sullivan scored. Gessler ran down two long fly balls in the bottom of the sixth.

The only runner to reach base in either the seventh or the eighth was McConnell on a Texas Leaguer with two outs in the eighth.

In the top of the ninth, the Red Sox loaded the bases with nobody out on an infield single by LaPorte, a single to right field by Unglaub, and another infield single by Wagner. Criger hit a fly ball to left field. LaPorte tagged and tried to score, but Stahl’s throw cut him down at home plate. The New York Sun wrote that “had [catcher Walter] Blair been wideawake he could have made a triple play by throwing to second for a runner who was merely jogging down there.”11 Cy Young then singled to left, driving in both Unglaub and Wagner. Young, a .210 lifetime hitter with 290 RBIs over 22 major-league seasons, had driven in half the runs in the game – four of them.12

Young needed three more outs for the no-hitter. Conroy flied out to left field. Blair fouled out to Criger. Young struck out Joe Lake, who for some reason was batting for himself – perhaps because he had gone 3-for-5 with two RBIs three days earlier.

Young had recorded 27 outs in a row after walking Niles to begin the game. Though the game had been in New York, as it progressed the more or less 1,500 fans present “cheered Young loudly after each inning, and because they saw that their team could not win rooted hard for him to keep up the record.”13 A Newark, New Jersey, newspaper concurred: “If he had been a member of the Yankee pitching staff, he could not have received better support from the fans.”14

Praised the Boston Journal, “Remove the bonnets and tip to your Uncle Cyrus, who performed one of the most wonderful pitching feats yesterday in the history of baseball, and our idol was also there with his bat. … Denton T., you are the wonder of wonders, and if this town does not have a ‘Young Day’ to rival that ‘[Honus Wagner] Day’ in Pittsburg, we are a lot of dead ones.”15

The New York American playfully jested at Young’s age, sighing that he had only three hits while batting and foreseeing someday, perhaps 10 years in the future, when he might be “on the down grade, and in 30 years he’ll be out of it for good.”16

How close had Young come to another perfect game? The Boston Journal may have been biased, but it suggested that Niles getting a walk was a “gift of the umpire.”17

Still, Young became the first major-league pitcher with three no-hitters since the 60-foot-6-inch pitching distance was adopted in 1893. Larry Corcoran of the NL’s Chicago White Stockings had thrown three no-hitters in the 1880s. Subsequent pitchers to throw three or more no-hitters were Justin Verlander (three), Bob Feller and Sandy Koufax (four), and Nolan Ryan (seven).

Young finished the 1908 season with a career-best 1.26 ERA and a record of 21-11, the 16th time he had won 20 or more games. The Red Sox came in seventh in the AL at 59-90. The following February, he was traded to Cleveland and won another 19 games, losing 15. 

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Mike Huber and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Cy Young, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA190806300.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1908/B06300NYA1908.htm

Notes

1 Elberfeld’s SABR biographer, Terry Simpkins, notes that New York lost 15 of its next 18 games.

2 McGuire’s record was 53-62 when he was dismissed. Fred Lake took over as manager for the rest of the season, and 1909, then became manager of Boston’s National League team, the Boston Doves, in 1910.

3 “No Hits for Yankees Off Veteran Young,” New York Times, July 1, 1908: 5.

4 “No Hits for Yankees Off Veteran Young.”

5 “No Hit, No Run for ‘Yanks’ Off King Cy Young,” Boston Journal, July 1, 1908: 9.

6 “No Hit, No Run for ‘Yanks’ Off King Cy Young.”

7 “Not a Hit or a Run Made Off Cy,” Boston Globe, July 1, 1908: 5.

8 “Not a Hit or a Run Made Off Cy.”

9 “Not a Hit Off Old Man Cy,” New York Sun, July 1, 1908: 5.

10 Lake ultimately finished the season 9-22, leading the league in losses.

11 “Not a Hit Off Old Man Cy.”

12 SABR member Michael Huber determined this was a career high for Young in his years pitching in the American League, 1901-11.

13 “Cy Young, Grandpa of Pitchers, in No-Hit Game at New York,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 1, 1908: 7.

14 Kiddo, “At 41, Veteran Young Pitches a No-Hit Game,” Newark (New Jersey) Evening Star, July 1, 1908: 7.

15 “Bob Dunbar’s Sporting Chat,” Boston Journal, July 1,1908: 9. Bob Dunbar was not a real person. The name was a fake byline used by sportswriters at the Boston Journal and later the Boston Herald (after a merger) when they didn’t want to be identified with an article they wrote.

16 New York American, quoted in the Boston Globe, July 1, 1908: 4.

17 “No Hit, No Run for ‘Yanks’ Off King Cy Young,” 1. The lone umpire for this game was Silk O’Loughlin.