July 17, 1970: A protest, a replay, and a losing no-hitter for Tri-City Padres

A successful protest can set off all kinds of unusual events, and fans of the short-season Class A Northwest League found that out firsthand in the summer of 1970.

League President John Carbray overturned the Tri-City (Washington) Padres’1 June 22 victory over the Bend (Oregon) Rainbows, upholding a protest by Bend manager Charlie Silvera, a former New York Yankees catcher. Carbray ordered the teams to replay the game from a disputed point in the first inning.2

The replay, held as part of a doubleheader on July 17, turned into a seven-inning no-hitter for Tri-City, with Padres pitchers Wayne Rettig and Fred Seibly sharing credit for the no-no. But Bend walked off with a 2-0 victory, piecing together a run against each pitcher without benefit of a hit.

The backdrop for this unusual scenario was a six-team league split into two divisions. Tri-City, a San Diego Padres affiliate, was managed by former major-league outfielder and first baseman Marty Keough and played in the loop’s North Division. Bend, a cooperative team with players from several big-league organizations including the Padres,3 played in the league’s South Division. Their manager, Silvera, had coached for the American League West Division champion Minnesota Twins the previous season. He returned to the majors as a coach with the Detroit Tigers and Texas Rangers from 1971 through 1975.4

As of June 22, the Rainbows had won three previous games from the Padres, and they began that day’s matchup on an offensive roll. Shortstop and leadoff hitter Bob Zamora reached on an error and advanced to second on a walk to second baseman Jim VanWyck.5 One out later, first baseman Terry Thompson walked to load the bases, and left fielder Yuki Suzuki drove in Zamora with a fly to center field.6

Suzuki, incidentally, was a 20-year-old from Fukushima, Japan, who had played for the Yomiuri Giants team that defeated the San Francisco Giants in a series of exhibitions in March 1970.7 He played three seasons at the short-season Class A level between 1970 and 1972, hitting .221, and rounded out his North American experience with a few games in the Mexican League in 1973.

Unfortunately, newspaper coverage in both teams’ home cities did not specify what happened next that caused Silvera to lodge a protest at that point in the game.8 We know only that Carbray agreed with the Bend manager’s argument. On July 15 the league president set aside the Padres’ eventual 5-4 win and ordered the teams to replay the game starting with two outs in the first inning and a 1-0 Rainbows lead. In other words, they were to replay everything after Suzuki’s sacrifice fly.9

The replay was appended to a scheduled game between the teams on July 17, creating a doubleheader. In addition to an extra game, the 937 fans who came to Tri-City’s home ballpark, Sanders-Jacobs Field, also enjoyed an appearance by well-traveled baseball clown Max Patkin.10

Tri-City entered the July 17 games with a 13-14 record, in second place in the North Division, 1½ games behind first-place Lewiston. Bend held second place in the South Division with a 14-14 record, three games behind first-place Coos Bay.11

Bend’s June 22 starter, Phil Smith,12 was replaced for the replay by 28-year-old righty Ed Cecil. A Bend native in his eighth minor-league season, Cecil served his hometown team simultaneously as pitcher, coach, and community goodwill ambassador.13 For the full season, Cecil went 10-7 with a 4.66 ERA in 27 games, including 13 starts. He led Rainbows pitchers in wins, appearances, and innings pitched.

Tri-City’s Rettig was also replaced for the replay – though his initial two-thirds of an inning, two walks, and one unearned run stayed on his record. News accounts don’t explain why Rettig didn’t return, but he may have been injured, as the local newspaper made no mention of him appearing in a game between July 3 and July 18.14

Eighteen-year-old righty Fred Seibly took Rettig’s place. Seibly had been a third-round pick in the previous month’s amateur draft out of Granada Hills High School in California. For the full season, he went 6-4 with a 5.22 ERA in 17 games, including 14 starts. In 1963 Seibly had scored the clinching run for the Granada Hills team that won the Little League World Series.15

None of Bend’s players in 1970 reached the major leagues as a player. One, catcher and Oregon native Tom Trebelhorn, later managed the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs. He started the second game for the Rainbows but sat out the first. (Umpires John Morgenroth and Ronald Kaluzok didn’t reach the big leagues either.16)

In contrast, seven members of the 1970 Tri-City club made the majors, and three of them started the first game.17 The most prominent of them was catcher Mike Ivie, who had been the number-one pick in the previous month’s amateur draft out of a Georgia high school. Ivie hit his first professional home run in the second game of the doubleheader, made his big-league debut near the end of the 1971 season, and played parts of 11 seasons in the majors, primarily as a first baseman.

John Scott started at shortstop for Tri-City; he’d been a first-round pick in the regular phase of the January 1970 draft.18 He reached the majors for parts of three seasons as an outfielder between 1974 and 1977. Padres second baseman Bob Davis also made his big-league mark at a different position, appearing solely as a catcher during his eight seasons in the majors between 1973 and 1981.

Tri-City right fielder Doug Hunt led off the bottom of the first with a double – the only extra-base hit of the game – but advanced no farther.19 The veteran Cecil and the youngster Seibly swapped zeroes through the fourth inning. In the top of the fifth, wildness came back to haunt Seibly, as it had Rettig. The rookie walked Zamora and another Bend batter, and Zamora came in to score on an error for a 2-0 lead.20 Another inning and a half of scoreless play wrapped up the Rainbows’ victory.

Cecil pitched a complete game, scattering four hits, and news coverage indicates that Hunt’s double was the closest the Padres came to mounting a scoring threat.21 He walked two and struck out three, inducing a double play in the seventh off the bat of pinch-hitter Nick Perlozzo to help wrap up the replay in 1 hour and 51 minutes.22

Seibly pitched 6 1/3 innings of hitless ball, walking six and striking out four. Despite taking no part in the replay, Rettig was saddled with the loss. The no-hit partners had remarkably similar careers: They each pitched a handful of games in the low minors in 1971 and 1973 – missing 1972 entirely – and then were gone from professional baseball.23 Seibly later became a Hollywood set designer whose credits included the 1996 blockbuster Twister and the 2011 adaptation of Michael Lewis’s iconic baseball book Moneyball.24

The game’s transformation from a Tri-City victory to a Bend win didn’t make a major difference to either team’s year-end performance. Tri-City finished third in the North Division with a 38-42 record, five games behind first-place Lewiston. Bend closed in second place in the South Division with a 39-41 record, six games behind Coos Bay.25

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author thanks SABR member and Games Project chair John Fredland for research assistance.

Photo credit: Fred Seibly, Tri-City Herald, July 27, 1970.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for general player, team, and season data.

Neither Baseball-Reference nor Retrosheet provides box scores of minor-league games, but the July 19, 1970, edition of the Tri-City Herald (Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland, Washington) published a box score.

Notes

1 The three cities in “Tri-City” were Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland, Washington.

2 “Padres Lose a Win,” Tri-City Herald, July 16, 1970: 19.

3 Baseball-Reference describes the Rainbows as a California Angels affiliate, but, a preseason story in the Bend Bulletin mentioned the team receiving four players from the San Diego Padres and said talks were ongoing with other major-league teams. “Rainbows Sign 2 More Players,” Bend Bulletin, May 5, 1970: 8, https://books.google.com/books?id=rgBYAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA8&dq=%22phil+smith%22+bend+rainbows&article_id=2500,4378890&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwis4N2gqMaBAxW8lokEHRkJACMQ6AF6BAgIEAI#v=onepage&q=%22phil%20smith%22%20bend%20rainbows&f=false. Accessed January 2025. A review of individual Bend players’ pages on Baseball-Reference also suggests that the team included players from several major-league organizations, as well as others who were signed as free agents. Utilityman Robert Groth and pitcher Robert Johnson had been Angels draft picks in June 1970; catcher Don Keenan and outfielder Richard Longhurst had been 1969 draft picks of the Padres; and outfielder Allan Wise and relief pitcher Billy Swope were Oakland Athletics draftees (Wise in June 1970, Swope in 1969).

4 Silvera worked under his former Yankees teammate Billy Martin at all of these coaching stops.

5 News accounts do not specify who made the error. The replay’s box score lists three Padres as committing errors – pitcher Rettig, catcher Mike Ivie, and John Scott, who started at shortstop and subsequently moved to third base. Since Rettig appeared so briefly in the game, it seems likely that he made the error at this point, but that can’t be assumed.

6 “Bows to Open Here after Loss to Padres,” Bend (Oregon) Bulletin, June 23, 1970: 6, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=WTSGYGHz1bkC&dat=19700623&printsec=frontpage&hl=en. Accessed January 2025.

7 Zeb Lilja, “Baseball – Japanese Style,” Tri-City Herald, July 17, 1970: 14.

8 The author reviewed the Bend and Tri-City newspapers for several days surrounding the June 22 game, as well as several days surrounding league President Carbray’s announcement of his decision on July 15. The Bend Bulletin doesn’t appear to have made any mention of the protest prior to July 18, when it ran a brief United Press International recap of the replayed game. The Tri-City Herald’s only coverage of the protest was the brief “Padres Lose a Win” article cited above.

9 “’Bows Stop Padres,” Tri-City Herald, July 19, 1970: 20.

10 “Baseball Tonight” (advertisement), Tri-City Herald, July 16, 1970: 19; “Tri-City Bombs Bend, 16-2,” Tri-City Herald, July 17, 1970: 14.

11 Northwest League settings as printed in the Tri-City Herald, July 17, 1970: 14. Lewiston (Idaho) was a St. Louis Cardinals farm team, while Coos Bay (Oregon) was affiliated with the Oakland Athletics.

12 As of February 2025, Baseball-Reference’s page for the 1970 Bend Rainbows did not list a Phil Smith among the team’s members. A preseason story in the Bend Bulletin about Smith’s signing reported that the pitcher had played for the Medford (Oregon) team in the Northwest League in 1968, going 1-5 with a 4.67 ERA in 13 games. “Rainbows Sign Another Hurler,” Bend Bulletin, April 2, 1970: 6, https://books.google.com/books?id=kwBYAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA6&dq=%22phil+smith%22+bend+rainbows&article_id=5077,2035738&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwis4N2gqMaBAxW8lokEHRkJACMQ6AF6BAgHEAI#v=onepage&q=%22phil%20smith%22%20bend%20rainbows&f=false. Accessed January 2025. Smith also was identified by name in a team photo appearing in the Bulletin of June 22, 1970: 9.   

13 Jim Easterwood, “Bend and Baseball Are Ready to Meet,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, June 22, 1970: D4. In 1971, Cecil was promoted to manager.

14 Based on a Newspapers.com search of the Tri-City Herald in July 1970, using the search term Rettig.

15 Steve Henson, “Ex-Champs Relive the Summer of ’63,” Los Angeles Times, August 17, 1996: C10.

16 The box score in the Tri-City Herald lists Morgenroth’s name first, suggesting that he was working behind home plate, but doesn’t specifically say so.

17 Other members of the 1970 Tri-City team who reached the majors were Ralph Garcia, Larry Hardy, Steve Simpson, and Dan Spillner. None of the four appeared in either game of the July 17 doubleheader.

18 Smith was chosen second; the first pick was Chris Chambliss, chosen by the Cleveland Indians.

19 “’Bows Stop Padres.”

20 This order of events is based in part on “’Bows Stop Padres” and in part on the box score, which shows Zamora scoring both of his team’s runs. Once again, news accounts do not provide detail on the run-scoring error, which had to have been committed by either catcher Ivie or infielder Scott. The short UPI roundup that appeared in the Bend newspaper didn’t detail the play either. United Press International, “Rainbows Steal No-Hitter from Tri-City Padres,” Bend Bulletin, July 18, 1970: 8, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=WTSGYGHz1bkC&dat=19700718&printsec=frontpage&hl=en. Accessed January 2025.

21 “’Bows Stop Padres.”

22 Nick Perlozzo, who never made the majors, was the older brother of big-league infielder and manager Sam Perlozzo. Jeff Zrebiec and Mike Klingaman, “Waiting Is Over for Perlozzo,” Baltimore Sun, August 5, 2005: 9F.

23 A Newspapers.com search for Rettig indicated that he pitched semipro ball in Washington state in the summer of 1972. “Richland Shares 4th in Tourney,” Tri-City Herald, July 31, 1972: 14. A similar search turned up no newspaper references to Seibly during 1972.

24 Internet Movie Database credits page for Fred Seibly, accessed January 2025, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0782310/; Henson, “Ex-Champs Relive the Summer of ’63.”

25 Lewiston was ruled the league champion based on its head-to-head record against Coos Bay during the season. “Padres Finish Season Tonight,” Tri-City Herald, August 31, 1970: 18.