August 3, 1975: Royals’ Paul Splittorff gets 26 straight A’s in one-hitter

“I’ll never pitch a no-hitter,” Paul Splittorff told reporters matter-of-factly in August 1975, and he was right.1 The bespectacled, high-kicking left-hander won 166 games and set enduring Kansas City Royals franchise records2 in his 15-season major-league career.3 But he never achieved a pitcher’s ultimate feat of skill and luck.

Three complete-game one-hitters were as close as Splittorff came. One of those gems occurred on August 3, 1975, when he dominated the three-time defending World Series champion Oakland A’s. He yielded a walk and a fluky, chopped infield single to the game’s second and third batters, then retired 26 consecutive hitters to wrap up an impressive 5-0 victory. Big hits by John Mayberry and George Brett delivered the Kansas City runs to support Splittorff’s star turn.

A product of the Royals’ minor-league system, Splittorff relied on intelligence, finesse, and preparation, rather than raw power. He became the first starter in franchise history to win 20 games in a season in 1973, the Royals’ fifth season after joining the American League as an expansion club. But he slumped to a 13-19 record the following season and was faring even more poorly in 1975, a victim of minor injuries, mechanical problems, and inconsistency.4 Between May 8 and July 25, he spent much of his time in the bullpen, pitching 12 times in relief while making only four starts.

A start against the eventual AL champion Boston Red Sox in the second game of a doubleheader on Friday, June 13, encapsulated Splittorff’s struggles. He was yanked after giving up a walk and four straight singles in a game the Royals came back to win, 6-5. It was the first of only three career starts in which Splittorff failed to retire a batter.5 He entered his start against Oakland with a 3-6 record and a 4.14 ERA.

Oakland came into the August 3 game comfortably on the path to its fifth straight AL West Division title. Manager Al Dark’s A’s had a 67-39 record, 10 games ahead of second-place Kansas City.

Many of Oakland’s stars from the World Series dynasty remained on the team, including Reggie Jackson, Gene Tenace, Bert Campaneris, Joe Rudi, and Sal Bando. That winning core was augmented in 1975 by rising young players like Phil Garner and Claudell Washington,6 plus veteran Billy Williams. Williams, a future Hall of Famer, had been picked up from the Chicago Cubs in a trade the previous October and served as Oakland’s primary designated hitter.7

Another promising youngster, 24-year-old righty Glenn Abbott, got the start on the mound on August 3. Like Splittorff, Abbott divided 1975 between the starting rotation and the bullpen after serving almost entirely as a starter in 19 appearances in 1974. He entered the game with a 5-2 record and a 3.69 ERA. Abbott and Splittorff had faced off once before in 1975, in Oakland on April 24. Both threw complete games, with Abbott coming out on top in a 3-2 A’s victory.

The Royals’ front office, dissatisfied with manager Jack McKeon, fired him on July 24 despite a winning record of 50-46.8 His replacement, Whitey Herzog, had compiled a 7-3 record since taking the reins. Herzog sparked the Royals to a 41-25 record and an eventual 91-71 finish, the first 90-win season in the franchise’s seven-year history.9 Herzog summoned Splittorff back into the Royals’ rotation, and the pitcher went 6⅓ innings to beat the Minnesota Twins on July 29. Splittorff was the only lefty in his team’s rotation, and “[N]o way can you get by in this division without a left-handed starter,” Herzog said.10

In addition to Mayberry and Brett, Kansas City’s mainstays included Hal McRae, Amos Otis, and Steve Busby, who won 18 games in the last full season before injuries derailed his promising career.11 The Royals had also picked up a legendary veteran to do their DH-ing, signing Harmon Killebrew after Killebrew’s release by the Twins in January 1975. The future Hall of Famer was ineffective as a Royal, though, hitting just .199 in 106 games. Tony Solaita started as the DH on August 3.

Some 26,833 fans came to Royals Stadium, then in its third season, to watch Splittorff and Abbott face off on a warm, windy Sunday afternoon.12 Splittorff had won the first game in the ballpark’s history, a 12-1 defeat of the Texas Rangers on April 10, 1973.

With one out in the top of the first, Garner worked Splittorff for a walk. The speedy Washington, who led the A’s with 40 stolen bases that season, then chopped a ball off home plate that bounced high in the air about halfway down the third-base line. Third baseman Brett fielded the ball cleanly when it finally came down, but had no play and held the ball rather than rush a throw. Several game accounts reported that Washington was already on first base by the time his bouncer landed in Brett’s glove.13

Facing another rough start, Splittorff found his groove. He got cleanup hitter Jackson to ground to shortstop Freddie Patek, who stepped on second to force Washington. After Jackson stole second, Rudi lined out to Otis in center field to end the inning – and with it, Oakland’s offense. Splittorff set down the next 24 batters in order. Oakland’s only threat came from Williams, who drove a fly to the right-field warning track in the eighth; the Royals’ Vada Pinson gathered it in.14

Never a fireballer, Splittorff struck out only three hitters, but mixed his pitches effectively and kept the A’s off balance. “He was getting ahead of everybody,” catcher Bob Stinson said. “He was getting his breaking ball over on the first pitch and that made his fastball seem faster. He was moving it around.”15

Kansas City put runners on second base in the second and third innings but couldn’t bring them home. Otis and Mayberry broke the logjam in the fourth inning. Otis hit a leadoff single and Mayberry followed with his 22nd home run of the season, to right field,16 giving the Royals a 2-0 lead.

A single and a walk produced no further runs, and the game settled into an offensive lull for several innings. No one reached base from the top of the fifth inning through the top of the eighth. In total, Abbott and Splittorff retired 23 straight batters.

The Royals broke the impasse again in the bottom of the eighth, starting with one out. Pinson, playing the last of his 18 major-league seasons, singled to shortstop and stole second base. Otis lined out to Jackson in right for the second out. Abbott walked Mayberry intentionally and Solaita unintentionally to load the bases and end his night.

With lefty swinger Brett coming to the plate, Dark called on veteran lefty Paul Lindblad, a regular bullpen contributor for the 1973 and ’74 World Series champion teams. Brett ripped what one writer called a “screaming” double down the right-field line, scoring all three runners and padding Kansas City’s lead to 5-0.17 Lindblad struck out Al Cowens to end the inning, but Brett’s 21st double of the season had given the Royals a comfortable cushion.

They didn’t need it, as Oakland went down quietly in the ninth. Angel Mangual, batting for catcher Larry Haney, grounded back to the mound. Campaneris flied to right. And Garner, whose first-inning walk represented precisely one-half of Oakland’s offense, grounded to Frank White at second base on Splittorff’s 107th and last pitch.18 The game ended in a tidy 2 hours and 8 minutes, giving the Royals two wins in a three-game weekend series.

After the game, Dark described Splittorff’s pitching as “tremendous.”19 Herzog suggested that the pitcher would have had a no-hitter if he’d been playing on natural grass, since Washington’s chopper wouldn’t have bounced so high on a grass surface.20

Enjoying a postgame slice of watermelon, Splittorff told reporters that he wasn’t bothered by falling just short of a no-no. “I’m not even thinking about that one hit the A’s got,” he said.21 He added that his time in the bullpen had made him a better pitcher: “Going to the bullpen was the best thing for me. I needed confidence. I needed to work on some things.”22

Splittorff spent the rest of 1975 in the Royals’ rotation. In 11 additional starts, he went 5-4 and cut his ERA to 3.17. He remained a starter for Kansas City until his final season of 1984, when he made nine of his 12 appearances in relief.23 After retiring, he became a longtime broadcaster for the Royals and was inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame.

Abbott had a relatively modest career compared to Splittorff’s, appearing in fewer games (248) and collecting fewer wins (62). He did, however, achieve one accomplishment that Splittorff never did. On September 28, 1975, Abbott worked the sixth inning of a combined four-pitcher no-hitter by Oakland against the California Angels. As a result, his name – unlike Splittorff’s – appears on Major League Baseball’s official list of no-hitters.24

Author’s note

Brief summaries of Paul Splittorff’s other two major-league one-hitters:

• On August 11, 1971, he threw a rain-shortened, five-inning 1-0 win against the Washington Senators in Washington. Jeff Burroughs’ fifth-inning double was the Senators’ only hit.
• In the second game of a doubleheader on September 2, 1977, Splittorff carried a no-hitter into the eighth inning before Charlie Moore of the Milwaukee Brewers hit a two-out pinch-single. Splittorff completed the game for a 3-0 win. Sal Bando and Larry Haney, who played for the A’s against the Royals in Splittorff’s 1975 one-hitter, appeared for the Brewers in this game.

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for general player, team and season data and the box scores for this game.

www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/KCA/KCA197508030.shtml

www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1975/B08030KCA1975.htm

Image of 1975 Topps baseball card #340 downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Associated Press, “One-Hitter by Kansas City Pitcher Halts A’s, 5-0,” Petaluma (California) Argus-Courier, August 4, 1975: 6.

2 At the start of the 2023 season – almost 40 seasons after his final big-league appearance – Splittorff still ranked as the Royals’ all-time career leader in wins (166), innings pitched (2,554⅔), games started (392), and batters faced (10,829). He also ranked first among Royals pitchers in career losses (143), earned runs surrendered (1,082), and hits surrendered (2,644). “Kansas City Royals Top 10 Career Pitching Leaders,” Baseball-Reference, accessed March 16, 2023.

3 In addition to his 392 starts, Splittorff also made 37 relief appearances for a career total of 429 big-league games between 1970 and 1984, all with the Royals.

4 John DiFonzo, “Paul Splittorff,” SABR Biography Project. Accessed March 16, 2023.

5 The other two: July 1, 1977, against the Cleveland Indians (in an eventual 12-2 Royals win), and September 10, 1978, against the California Angels (in an eventual 13-3 Angels victory).

6 The 1975 season was the first for Garner and Washington as full-time players, though both had appeared with the A’s in previous seasons.

7 Full terms of the trade: Williams to the A’s; Bob Locker, Darold Knowles, and Manny Trillo to the Cubs.

8 Joe McGuff, “Royals Drop Ax on McKeon, Whitey Herzog New Manager,” Kansas City Star, July 24, 1975: 1.

9 Herzog went on to manage Kansas City to three straight AL West titles between 1976 and 1978, losing the AL Championship Series each year. Moving on to the cross-state St. Louis Cardinals in 1980, he led the Cardinals to a World Series championship in 1982 and National League titles in 1985 and 1987. In 1985 Herzog’s Cardinals lost a suspenseful seven-game World Series to the Royals, then managed by Dick Howser.

10 Sid Bordman, “Royals Aren’t Dead Yet … and Dark Knows It,” Kansas City Star, August 4, 1975: 9.

11 Busby won 16, 22, and 18 games from 1973 to 1975, including two no-hitters. He also appeared in the 1975 All-Star Game. After 1975, he appeared in four more big-league seasons and won just 11 games.

12 The weather forecast that day called for a high temperature in the upper 80s, with winds of 10 to 15 miles per hour. “The Weather: Could Be Worse,” Kansas City Star, August 3, 1975: 1.

13 Del Black, “Splittorff One Short of No-Hit Game,” Kansas City Times, August 4, 1975: 1C; United Press International, “K.C. Pitcher One-Hits A’s,” San Rafael (California) Independent-Journal, August 4, 1975: 29; Associated Press, “One-Hitter by Kansas City Pitcher Halts A’s, 5-0.”

14 Black, “Splittorff One Short of No-Hit Game.”

15 Black.

16 Bordman, “Royals Aren’t Dead Yet … and Dark Knows It.” Mayberry ended the 1975 season as the Royals’ far-and-away team leader with 34 home runs, more than twice as many as the next-closest teammate. (Solaita hit a career-high 16, the aging Killebrew managed 14, and Brett hit 11.)

17 Black, “Splittorff One Short of No-Hit Game.”

18 Associated Press, “One-Hitter by Kansas City Pitcher Halts A’s, 5-0.”

19 Bordman, “Royals Aren’t Dead Yet … and Dark Knows It.”

20 Associated Press, “One-Hitter by Kansas City Pitcher Halts A’s, 5-0.”

21 Associated Press, “One-Hitter by Kansas City Pitcher Halts A’s, 5-0.” A postgame picture of Splittorff with an ear-to-ear grin and a thick slice of watermelon can be seen in the Kansas City Times, August 4, 1975: 1C.

22 Bordman, “Royals Aren’t Dead Yet … and Dark Knows It.”

23 Between 1976 and 1983, Splittorff appeared in 249 games, of which 236 were starts.

24 Abbott has another career distinction that Splittorff was unable to claim: He pitched for World Series-winning teams, appearing in 19 games for the 1974 A’s and 13 games for the 1984 Detroit Tigers. According to Abbott’s SABR Biography Project article, written by Clifford Corn, the Tigers gave Abbott a ring and a partial World Series share despite his limited contribution to the team’s success. Splittorff reached the World Series only once, in 1980, when the Royals lost in six games to the Philadelphia Phillies. His only appearance was 1⅔ innings in relief in the Phillies’ Series-clinching victory in Game Six.