July 11, 1997: Brewers’ Ben McDonald leaves no-hitter with shoulder pain

As July 1997’s trade deadline approached, it was a foregone conclusion that Ben McDonald and the Milwaukee Brewers would part ways. Coming out of the All-Star break with a record of 39-44, leaving them eight games out of the wild-card race and mired in third place in the American League Central Division, the Brewers were considering offers for the high-priced 29-year-old power pitcher with a 7-6 record and a 4.24 earned-run average.

Several teams were rumored to have called Brewers general manager Sal Bando about acquiring McDonald, including one familiar to the right-hander. “I’ve heard I’m going to the [Colorado] Rockies.1 I’ve heard Cleveland and Baltimore,” said McDonald, whom the Baltimore Orioles had selected with the first overall pick of the 1989 June amateur draft.2

“If I did come [back to Baltimore, that] would be the easiest transition for me, obviously,” McDonald reflected on his seven seasons with the Orioles. “It’s been great in Milwaukee, but I do miss the fans here. Other than the crabcakes, that’s what I miss the most.”3

After an injury-riddled 1995 season that saw McDonald miss three months to shoulder tendinitis, Baltimore refused to offer the pitcher a contract.4 He signed an incentive-heavy free-agent deal with Milwaukee and bounced back in 1996 with the best season of his career, making 35 starts on his way to a 12-10 record and 3.90 ERA. Now, pitching out of the visitors dugout at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, McDonald was poised to start the second half of the season by showing the Orioles – and any other contenders – that he had what they needed for a postseason run.

Despite an AL-best record of 55-29, the Orioles had stumbled into the break, losing 11 of their last 21 games, including their last three. While they held a seven-game lead on the New York Yankees, the defending World Series champions were retooling for the second half, acquiring Japanese star pitcher Hideki Irabu, who’d made his major-league debut the previous night.

Jimmy Key took the mound before a nearly sellout crowd of 47,919 on a Friday night. Though he didn’t play in the All-Star Game, Key was selected to the roster based on his 12-4 record and 2.55 ERA.5 But Key had struggled with a lack of run support in late June that saw him tagged with three straight losses – including one to the Brewers6 – in which Baltimore was outscored by a combined 11-2.

Milwaukee jumped on Key immediately. José Valentín led off with a single and Jeromy Burnitz followed with another that got Valentín to second. Key attempted to pick off Burnitz – one of 19 times the lefty threw to first in the game – but sailed the ball past Rafael Palmeiro for an error that advanced both runners. Jeff Cirillo then walked to load the bases with no outs. Key managed to escape the inning down just one run when Valentín scored on a double-play grounder and Dave Nilsson struck out.

Leading off for Baltimore, designated hitter Brady Anderson, resting a bruised calf that kept him out of his customary position in center field,7 struck out looking. McDonald then got Roberto Alomar and Gerónimo Berroa to hit into a pair of groundouts.

In the second, Key got into danger again, surrendering back-to-back singles to Gerald Williams and Mark Loretta that put runners at the corners. The Brewers attempted a delayed double steal, but Williams broke late from third and Alomar grabbed catcher Lenny Webster’s throw to second and fired it back for the out at the plate. “There was a lot of sloppy activity on the bases,” Brewers manager Phil Garner summed up.8

McDonald picked up where he left off, retiring Palmeiro and Cal Ripken Jr. to start the second,9 but hit B.J. Surhoff with a pitch before inducing a groundout by Jeffrey Hammonds. Surhoff was the only Baltimore runner McDonald allowed.

Milwaukee struck again in the third. With runners at the corners, third baseman Ripken signaled for a pickoff attempt, but Webster threw short. The ball skipped into the outfield, allowing Burnitz to score. And after another perfect McDonald inning in the bottom of the third, former Oriole Jack Voigt hit a solo homer that put the Brewers up 3-0.

With the Orioles hitless through six innings, the press box was abuzz with chatter about the only no-hitter in Brewers history, which coincidentally also took place in Baltimore, 10 years earlier.10 But while McDonald appeared to be cruising, his shoulder was begging for mercy.

“I noticed it was stiff about the third inning,” McDonald recounted, “and the fourth, it wasn’t getting much better. … Finally, I went ahead and said something.”11

“He said he probably could go another inning,” Garner reported. “I didn’t want to take a chance.”12

“I couldn’t believe it when the [bullpen] phone rang,” said Brewers reliever Mike Fetters.13

After singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” the crowd was shocked to see Fetters enter from center field while McDonald remained in the dugout with a jacket over his right arm.

“Believe me, it hurt me to come out as much as anybody. … My goal is to make 34 or 35 starts this season. I don’t want to sacrifice that for one game,” McDonald said, calling it part of his maturing process. “Six or seven years ago, I would probably have gone back out there, and who knows what would have happened?”14

A one-out single by Palmeiro ended the no-hit bid in the seventh and a pinch-hit double by Tony Tarasco prevented the shutout in the eighth. Up 3-1 and needing three more outs in the ninth, Garner turned to another former Oriole who’d left after the 1995 season.

And most Orioles fans had been happy to see Doug Jones go.

“I thought I had a pretty good year here, but I’m sure the fans would see it a little differently,” Jones said. “I went back and looked at my season and I found six games that were just bad games … but all those games were at home.”15 In his only season with the Orioles, Jones converted all 12 of his save attempts on the road and gave up just seven runs for a 2.55 ERA. At home, however, he had an ERA of 7.77, surrendered 23 runs in 24 games, and blew three of his 13 save attempts.16

The 40-year-old reliever had no struggles in Camden Yards this night. He retired the Orioles in order, holding them to three hits and securing his 21st save on his way to a season total of 36.

McDonald was credited with the win and asserted that he didn’t regret leaving the game with a shot at immortality on the table. “I’d like to pitch six or seven more years. I think [an opportunity to throw a no-hitter] will happen again,” McDonald insisted.17 “I’m 99 percent sure I’ll be able to make my next start, and I’m sure we made the right decision.”18

Five days later, McDonald did indeed make his next scheduled start, the last of his career.19 After giving up three runs in six innings in a loss to the Cleveland Indians, he complained again of shoulder stiffness and was later diagnosed with a partially torn rotator cuff that required season-ending surgery.

During the following offseason, Milwaukee worked out a swap to send McDonald to Cleveland, but the pitcher reaggravated the shoulder during a spring-training rehab session, revealing that the surgery had failed and that a second would be required, costing him all of 1998. Prior to the 1999 season, he signed with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, expecting to join the roster around May. But his shoulder still wasn’t up to the rigors of the job. After several setbacks, he had a third surgery in August that finally ended his career with a 78-70 record and a 3.91 ERA over nine seasons.

A decade later, McDonald returned to the Orioles as a color commentator.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Bob LeMoine and Jacob Pomrenke for providing articles from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. This article was fact-checked by Ray Danner and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Ben McDonald, Trading Card Database.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL199707110.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1997/B07110BAL1997.htm

Notes

1 Some Denver-area fans were advocating that the Rockies trade top prospect Todd Helton to acquire a pitcher of McDonald’s caliber. Kevin Appier of the Kansas City Royals and Mike Timlin of the Toronto Blue Jays were other names apparently on Colorado’s short list. Mark Kiszla, “The Pressure Cooker Is Now Set on High,” Denver Post, August 2, 1997: 1C; Barney Hutchinson, “Rockies Sit as Giants Improve,” Boulder Daily Camera, August 1, 1997: 3C; La Velle E. Neal III, “Robinson Won’t Mind Sitting Tight: Royals Might Go Quietly into Trading Deadline,” Kansas City Star, July 30, 1997: D-1.

2 Joe Strauss, “Big Ben Tolls as O’s Clocked, 3-1,” Baltimore Sun, July 12, 1997: 1C.

3 Strauss, “Big Ben Tolls as O’s Clocked, 3-1.”

4 McDonald also won an arbitration hearing in 1995 that made him one of the highest paid pitchers in baseball and created a rift between Orioles ownership and the pitcher’s agent, Scott Boras.

5 Mussina, also an All-Star who didn’t play in the game, was originally slated to start this game, but was recovering from bronchitis and was pushed back to Sunday.

6 Through 1997, the Brewers were the only team that Key had a losing record against in his career (12-14). Because of expansion and the introduction of interleague play in 1998, his final season before retiring, he faced four teams that he’d never seen before the Devil Rays, Atlanta Braves, Montreal Expos, and New York Mets. Key went 1-3 in six games against those opponents.

7 Roch Kubatko, “Erickson Moves Up, Mussina Back a Day,” Baltimore Sun, July 12, 1997: 4C. Orioles manager Davey Johnson had taken Anderson out of the starting lineup for the final two games before the break because of the injury, and had requested that AL All-Star manager Joe Torre limit Anderson’s playing time. Instead, Torre kept Anderson in for the full nine innings, upsetting Johnson. But to be fair, Torre’s outfield options were limited. Both Anderson and starting center fielder Ken Griffey Jr. played the full game because Torre ostensibly had just one reserve outfielder, Bernie Williams, who replaced Paul O’Neill in the sixth inning. The injured David Justice’s roster replacement was non-outfielder Jim Thome, and Albert Belle, the other reserve outfielder, was held out of the game as a security precaution, fearing that the fans at Jacobs Field might be induced to violence if the former Cleveland slugger entered the game. Associated Press, “Belle’s Safety an Issue,” Toledo Blade, July 12, 1997: 26.

8 Drew Olson, “A Nearly Historic Evening,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 12, 1997: C1. Baserunning mistakes killed at least two other potential Brewers rallies.

9 Ripken was playing in his 2,402nd consecutive game.

10 The no-no tossed by Juan Nieves was played in Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium. Milwaukee added a second no-hitter in 2021, a combined effort by Corbin Burnes and Josh Hader.

11 Roch Kubatko, “McDonald Says Arm Told Him, ‘No Mas,’” Baltimore Sun, July 12, 1997: 1C.

12 David Ginsburg (Associated Press), “Stiff Shoulder Ends No-Hit Bid as Brewers Win,” Wisconsin State Journal (Madison), July 12, 1997: 1D.

13 Olson, “A Nearly Historic Evening.”

14 Olson, “A Nearly Historic Evening.”

15 Roch Kubatko, “Ex-Oriole Jones Shows Stuff, as a Visitor,” Baltimore Sun, July 12, 1997: 4C.

16 Jones also entered a crucial August game against Toronto with a 10-6 lead and surrendered six runs without recording an out, leading to a loss that many fans saw as the beginning of the end of the team’s playoff hopes.

17 Strauss, “Big Ben Tolls as O’s Clocked, 3-1.”

18 Olson, “A Nearly Historic Evening.”

19 Making this start, his 21st of the season, triggered a $2 million bonus clause in McDonald’s contract, nearly doubling his 1998 earnings to $4.5 million. He denied speculation that he’d made the start without regard for the injury risk it posed just to ensure that he got the money. Associated Press, “McDonald to Have Surgery,” Capital Times, July 23, 1997: 4B.