July 12, 1900: Noodles Hahn blanks ‘greatest batting team ever organized’ in final no-hitter of nineteenth century

Nearing the midway point of the 1900 season, Noodles Hahn made history by shutting out one of baseball’s most potent offenses without allowing a base hit. Hahn, a 5-foot-9, 160-pound left-hander with the Cincinnati Reds, blanked the Philadelphia Phillies on July 12, prompting the Cincinnati Enquirer to report, “No-hit games have been pitched before, but taking into consideration the fact that Hahn was in against the greatest batting team that was ever organized, his performance is doubtless the high-water mark of the national game.”1

Did the 1900 Phillies have “the greatest batting team that was ever organized”? The 1899 Phils had won 94 games (good for third place in the National League), posting the franchise’s best winning percentage since 1886. They had topped the league in batting (.301), hits (1,613), RBIs (787), and runs scored (916). First baseman and future Hall of Famer Ed Delahanty, dubbed “one of the greatest right-handed sluggers”2 playing at the end of the nineteenth century, led the league in most offensive categories, batting .410 with 55 doubles and 137 RBIs. Four other Philadelphia starting position players had batted over .300 as well, and three of those (Roy Thomas and future Hall of Famers Nap Lajoie and Elmer Flick) were back with Delahanty in 1900, boosting the Phillies’ chances to capture their first NL pennant.

After a strong start in April and May, the ’00 Phillies had built a four-game lead in the National League. During a 21-game homestand from the end of May through June 22, the Phillies went 12-9 and fell to second place in the standings. In some ways, the “greatest batting team” was slumping. Lajoie was absent from the lineup for five weeks after breaking his thumb3 in a fistfight with Flick. He was replaced by utility infielder Joe Dolan, who batted just .198 for the season. Delahanty’s average was down almost 100 points from the previous year. Still, Thomas, a perennial leader in bases on balls, continued to get on base and score runs,4 Flick had the most RBIs in the NL by the time the season ended, and Philadelphia’s season total of runs scored was just six behind the league-leading Brooklyn Superbas.5 If anything, the Phillies’ most significant shortfall was in run prevention, as their pitching staff allowed over half a run more per game than in 1899.6

On June 23 the Phillies began a Western road trip, which was scheduled to finish with a four-game series against the Reds at Cincinnati’s League Park.7 Leading up to that series, the Phillies had won just four of 13 of those away contests,8 losing further ground to the league-leading Superbas.

The Reds, meanwhile, had won about 60 percent of their games in April and June, but that success sandwiched a 6-16 record in May. After being swept in four games at home by the Superbas on July 5-8, the Reds took their revenge on the Phillies, winning the first three games of the series and climbing to within three games of fourth-place Philadelphia.

Trying to salvage a win to end the skid, Philadelphia manager Bill Shettsline gave right-hander Bill Bernhard the start. Bernhard was in his second big-league season, having debuted in 1899 at 28 years old; he was already 26 in 1897 when he switched from playing amateur to professional baseball as a pitcher and first baseman on the Palmyra Mormons in the Class C New York State League.9 Philadelphia had won 11 of Bernhard’s first 12 starts in 1900, including two victories without a loss against the Reds, but they then lost the last five games the second-year hurler started, and none of the games were close.

First-year Cincinnati skipper Bob Allen, a former star outfielder with the Phillies, gave Hahn the mound duties. After making his minor-league debut in 1895 as a 16-year-old with Chattanooga (which became the Mobile Blackbirds) of the Southern Association, Hahn was in his second season with the Reds. As a rookie in 1899, he had led the NL with 145 strikeouts. His 23 wins and 2.68 ERA paced the Reds’ pitching staff, and now in 1900, the Reds had won in six of Hahn’s last seven starts.

Philadelphia got a runner in scoring position in the first inning when Delahanty walked with two out and stole second, but Hahn stranded him there by striking out Flick. Delahanty turned out to be the only Philadelphia player to get as far as second base. In the home half, Jimmy Barrett led off with a walk. As Barrett attempted a steal of second, Bernhard threw a wild pitch, and Barrett advanced to third. An out later, Barrett scored on Jake Beckley’s fly ball to left, and Cincinnati had a 1-0 lead.

Hahn retired the Phillies in order in the second, and although the Reds had two baserunners in their turn, Bernhard did not allow a run. Thomas reached in the top of the third on an infield error by third baseman Bob Wood, but he was caught trying to steal second.

Cincinnati added two runs in the bottom of the third. Tommy Corcoran led off with a single. Beckley followed with an RBI triple to center. Bernhard then walked Sam Crawford and Algie McBride to load the bases, and Beckley scored when Wood hit a grounder, forcing McBride out at second.

The Reds loaded the bases again in the fourth but came away empty. Both starters were then in a groove until the seventh, when Hahn hit Flick with a pitch. A basestealing threat,10 Flick took too big a lead, and Hahn threw over to first, getting Flick in a rundown that ended in the inning’s third out.

With one down in the bottom of the seventh, Crawford lined a pitch that Jimmy Slagle in left field “failed to smother,”11 allowing Crawford to race around the bases for an inside-the-park home run. That was Cincinnati’s fourth and final run of the game.

Hahn was as dominant in the ninth inning as in any other. He struck out Monte Cross and Pearce Chiles, batting for Bernhard. Down to the Phillies’ last hope, Thomas “tried to get a bingle”12 by bunting the pitch from Hahn. The ball rolled in front of the plate. Reds catcher Heinie Peitz pounced, picked up the ball, and threw to first in time to get Thomas for the final out and seal the no-hitter.

In pitching the third no-hit game in Cincinnati history,13 Hahn shut down the Phillies lineup, allowing just two bases on balls. Only four of Philadelphia’s 29 batters reached first base, and two were tagged out attempting to steal.

The lefty struck out eight batters, adding to his eventual league-leading total of 132.14 Both Delahanty and Flick struck out twice. Delahanty finished the season with just 36 strikeouts in 539 at-bats, prompting the Cincinnati Enquirer to print, “When the mighty Delahanty fans twice in one game, there is some pitching being done.”15 Further, after Delahanty struck out for the second time, “the idea of a no-hit game struck the rooters, and thereafter they begged and implored Hahn not to allow the Phillies to get one safe.”16 Hahn twice retired the side on just five pitched balls.17 This was Hahn’s second shutout of the season, and he went on to lead the NL with four shutouts.

The Philadelphia Times reported that “for the first time in the history of the Philadelphia Club the Quakers were shut out without a single hit to their credit,”18 but this was actually the second occasion in franchise history, although it had been 17 seasons since the Philadelphia team went hitless in an official game. On September 13, 1883, Cleveland’s Hugh “One Arm” Daily had pitched a no-hitter against the Phillies. The next time after Hahn that the Phillies were no-hit was on July 4, 1908, when New York’s George “Hooks” Wiltse accomplished the rare feat.19

Coincidentally, the umpire for this historic game was former Brooklyn Bridegrooms pitcher Adonis Terry, who had pitched no-hitters himself on July 24, 1886, against the St. Louis Browns, and May 27, 1888, against the Louisville Colonels.20 This was the first time that a former pitcher who had authored a no-hitter was the umpire in another pitcher’s no-hit game.

Hahn’s feat was the only no-hit game pitched in 1900, and the last no-hitter pitched in the nineteenth century.21 This was the best performance of his eight-season career. He pitched a one-hit shutout on October 9, 1904, against the St. Louis Cardinals; that was the only other time he flirted with a no-hitter.22

Acknowledgments 

This article was fact-checked by Ray Danner and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

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

Notes

1 “Hahn Too Much for Quakers,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 13, 1900: 4.

2 John Saccoman, “Ed Delahanty,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ed-delahanty/. Accessed November 2024.

3 According to his SABR biography, Lajoie broke his thumb as a result of a fistfight with his teammate Flick. See Stephen Constantelos and David Jones, “Nap Lajoie,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/nap-lajoie/. Accessed November 2024. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Lajoie did not play in this game, as “the thumb of his right hand still resembles a well-worn cork of a vinegar jug.” See “Hahn Too Much for Quakers.”

4 Thomas led the league in bases on ball (115) and runs scored (132) in 1900. He led the NL is walks six times in a seven-year stretch (1900–1906).

5 In 1899 the Phillies scored 916 runs in 154 games (5.95 runs per game average) and the Superbas scored 892 in 148 games (6.03 average). In 1900 Philadelphia scored 810 runs in 141 games (5.74 average); Brooklyn, which also played 141 games, scored 816 runs (5.79 average).

6 Bill Bernhard won 15 games in 1900 (with only six in 1899), but his ERA jumped from 2.65 to 4.77. In addition, Wiley Piatt had won more than 20 games in each of his first two seasons (1898 and 1899), but his ERA jumped more than a run per game in 1900, to 4.65.

7 A travel day had been built into the original schedule for Friday, July 13, but the Phillies traveled to Pittsburgh from Cincinnati and played one game before heading home, routing the Pirates 23-8. It was a makeup game from a May 19 rainout.

8 In those 13 games, the Phillies scored more than six runs just twice, while they allowed more than seven runs in five different games. The Reds outscored the Phillies 21-12 in the four-game series sweep.

9 Stephen V. Rice, “Bill Bernhard,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Bill-Bernhard/. Accessed November 2024.

10 Flick stole 31 bases in 1899 and 35 in 1900, which was ninth-best in the NL.

11 Cincinnati Enquirer.

12 Cincinnati Enquirer.

13 The first two Cincinnati pitchers to throw a no-hitter Bumpus Jones (October 15, 1892, against the Pittsburgh Pirates – in his major-league debut and only appearance of the season), and Theodore Breitenstein (April 22, 1898, against the Pittsburgh Pirates – this was his second career no-hitter, with his first coming on October 4, 1891, while he was pitching for the St. Louis Browns).

14 This was the second consecutive season in which Hahn led the NL in strikeouts (he fanned 145 in 1899). He also struck a National League-high 239 in 1901, giving him three straight seasons with the most strikeouts in the majors; he bested the American League’s Cy Young (158) as well.

15 Cincinnati Enquirer.

16 “Quakers Shut Out Without a Hit,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 13, 1900: 6.

17 “Not a Run or Hit for the Phillies,” Philadelphia Times, July 13, 1900: 10.

18 Philadelphia Times.

19 Wiltse pitched 10 innings in this near-perfect performance. The only batter to reach was hit by a pitch, “following a missed third-strike call.” See Gary Belleville, “July 4, 1908: Giants’ Hooks Wiltse denied 10-inning perfect game by umpire error, settles for no-hitter,” SABR Games Project, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/july-4-1908-giants-hooks-wiltse-denied-10-inning-perfect-game-by-umpire-error-settles-for-no-hitter/. Accessed November 2024.

20 Terry played for 14 seasons in the American Association and National League, from 1884 to 1897, as a pitcher and outfielder. While still an active player, he was an umpire 10 times (between 1884 and 1892). In 1900 he called 39 games, including this no-hitter. However, after two months, he was “unwilling to put up with poor treatment on the field and off,” so he retired. He came back for two more games in 1901. See Larry DeFillipo, “Adonis Terry,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/adonis-terry/. Accessed November 2024.

21 The nineteenth century began on January 1, 1801, and ended on December 31, 1900.

22 See “Top Performances for Noodles Hahn (Incomplete),” Retrosheet.org, https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/H/PX_hahnn101.htm. Accessed November 2024. Hahn injured his arm in 1905 and was released after 13 games. He tried a comeback in 1906 with the New York Highlanders, but after just six starts, he asked for a release, and his major-league career ended.