May 17, 1957: Harvey’s brother Fred Haddix makes his own no-hit legend for Corning Red Sox

Harvey Haddix attained no-hit fame the hard way. On May 26, 1959, the Pittsburgh Pirates left-hander, fighting a cold, pitched 12 perfect innings against the Milwaukee Braves before surrendering a 13th-inning hit to Joe Adcock and losing the game, 1-0.1

His little brother Fred had it easier, albeit against lesser competition. On May 17, 1957, lefty Fred Haddix pitched a rain-shortened no-hitter of his own for the Corning (New York) Red Sox against the Wellsville (New York) Braves of the Class D New York-Penn League. It was his first start of the season – in fact, his first professional start in nearly seven years.2

Like his brother, Fred Haddix didn’t get much offensive support. His Corning teammates mustered only one hit of their own but combined it with several walks and stolen bases to scrape together two runs. The Red Sox were leading 2-0 when plate umpire Jerry Stockman called the game in the middle of the sixth inning.

Growing up in rural central Ohio in the 1940s, three Haddix brothers – in ascending order of age catcher Ben and pitchers Harvey and Fred – all developed enough talent to reach professional baseball.3 In high school, Fred Haddix once struck out 19 batters in a game, including 18 in a row.4 A Dayton, Ohio, newspaper compared Fred in his senior year to Bucky Walters, the former Cincinnati Reds ace and 1939 National League Most Valuable Player, noting that the young Haddix “works fast and throws hard.” The unnamed reporter added, “He is a polished performer on the hill and a definite prospect for pro baseball.”5

In August 1949, Fred Haddix signed a contract with the Boston Red Sox’ Class A farm team in Scranton, Pennsylvania, which in turn assigned him to the Marion (Ohio) Red Sox of the Class D Ohio-Indiana League.6 The 19-year-old went 11-7 with a 5.13 ERA in 23 games for a 1950 Marion team that edged out the Newark (Ohio) Yankees to win the regular-season title by one game, then won the league’s four-team Shaughnessy-style playoff as well. In one early-season contest between Marion and the Springfield (Ohio) Giants, Fred faced his brother Ben, the Giants’ catcher. Ben Haddix struck out in two at-bats but collected a single in another.7

Available sources don’t explain why, but after his rookie year, Fred Haddix stepped away from pro baseball and went back home.8 He doesn’t appear to have been injured, as he was pitching in local amateur leagues as early as May 1951.9 He married Virginia Chapman in April 1953; the announcement listed farming as his occupation.10 The Haddixes became parents of a son in May 1954, and later that year, Fred was inducted into the US Army, where he served through 1956.11

Harvey Haddix, by then an established big-leaguer reportedly urged his younger brother to return to pitching “so he’ll know about pro ball.”12 And Fred did, opening the 1957 season with the Greensboro Patriots of the Class B Carolina League, his fastball mostly abandoned in favor of curves, screwballs, and changeups.13 After five relief appearances, Haddix was reassigned to Corning as part of a larger roster turnover. One of the young players who replaced him at Greensboro was Bill Monbouquette, a future four-time American League All-Star who threw a no-hitter for the Boston Red Sox in August 1962.14

The Corning team Fred Haddix joined was on a hot streak and was headed by a familiar face. Manager Elmer Yoter, who’d managed Haddix at Marion in 1950, had led his team to nine straight wins.15 With a 14-4 record, the “CorSox” held first place by a half-game margin over manager Alex Monchak’s Wellsville Braves.16 Wellsville had enjoyed a moment in the spotlight just a few days earlier, when pitcher Luis DeLeon threw the league’s first no-hitter of the season on May 12, beating Elmira, 4-1.17 At 26, Haddix was a graybeard by New York-Penn standards; the average age of pitchers across the league that season was 20.6 years.

Only four players who appeared for Corning in 1957 reached the majors, and none of them appeared in the May 17 game.18 Haddix’s catcher was Kenneth Wolfe, who hit .168 in 89 games as a 19-year-old rookie. He later reached Triple A in a six-season minor-league career.

Only one Wellsville player went on to the majors – 19-year-old first baseman Corky Withrow, who appeared in six games with the 1963 St. Louis Cardinals.19 Besides Withrow, Wellsville’s most notable position player was probably 21-year-old rookie third baseman Dick Selinger, who hit .310 with 16 home runs and 110 RBIs.20 The start on the mound went to 19-year-old second-year right-hander Ernie Christoff, who compiled a 12-8 record between two Class D teams that season.21

Only 612 fans turned out on a wet Friday night. They were lucky to see a game at all, as the New York-Penn’s other three scheduled games were all rained out.22

Haddix began his start by walking center fielder Joe Edgley. Second baseman Joaquin “Chico” Perez, up next, hit a liner to Corning second baseman Jerry Snider, who caught it and threw to first to double off Edgley. An uneventful fly to left field ended the inning. The second through fourth innings passed in one-two-three fashion, with Haddix striking out the side in order in the fourth.23

The CorSox didn’t collect any hits in the first or second, nor did they hit any of Christoff’s pitches particularly hard.24 Christoff got the first out in the third inning, then pitched himself into trouble, walking third baseman Joe DeCandido, right fielder Norm Bernard, and left fielder Bob Lewis to load the bases.25 First baseman Bill Hamill’s grounder resulted in a force play at the plate, retiring DeCandido for the second out.26

Center fielder Freddie Duvall, a .283 hitter in 105 games over the full season, was next. Duvall scratched an infield single to deep short for the game’s first – and only – hit, scoring Lewis for a 1-0 Corning lead and reloading the bases.27 Second baseman Snider then worked Christoff for a walk, expanding the Red Sox’ lead to 2-0.

Christoff, who’d walked six in 2 2/3 innings, gave way to Canadian-born Bill Rotari, who pitched in eight games in 1957, his only recorded pro season. Rotari pitched the remaining 2 1/3 innings for Wellsville, walking two but allowing no hits or runs.

The Braves moved their only runner into scoring position at the start of the fifth: Selinger drew a walk, then took second when Haddix threw away a pickoff attempt. A strikeout, a fly to right, and another strikeout left Selinger stranded.

In the top of the sixth, catcher Emilio Naranjo grounded back to Haddix for the first out. Opposing pitcher Rotari drew Haddix’s third and last walk. Edgley struck out – Haddix’s eighth and final whiff – and Perez’s grounder forced Rotari at second.

And that, as it turned out, was the no-hitter. Umpire Stockman halted the game for rain before Corning’s turn at bat in the bottom of the sixth.28 After a delay of an hour, he called the game, sending Haddix’s no-no into the record books.29

The game took 1 hour and 31 minutes to play, and Haddix “displayed coolness on the mound” along with “a good curve and fine control,” according to the Corning Leader. The paper also reported that Haddix was aware of his no-hitter in progress but was more concerned about giving up walks than hits.30 Reporters covering the game, apparently unaware of Haddix’s previous pro season in 1950, described it as Haddix’s first professional start.

Wellsville went on to win the regular-season title with a 74-43 record, with Corning in third place at 65-52, nine games back.31 Both teams were knocked out in the first round of the Shaughnessy-style four-team playoffs, which were eventually won by the second-place Erie Sailors.

Fred Haddix compiled a record of 4-3 with a 3.67 ERA in seven starts, including five complete games. And then he left the sport again. On June 19, he gave up three walks and three hits in the first inning against Olean and took a 5-1 complete-game loss.32 Two days later, the Corning club announced that Haddix and another pitcher had left the team and voluntarily retired, with no reason publicly given.33

After that, Fred Haddix next appeared in the public eye on December 1, 1957 – the day his wife, Virginia, and brother Harvey’s wife, Marcia, both gave birth to daughters at the same hospital in Ohio.34 He subsequently worked for Ohio Edison for more than three decades and died in 2017 at age 86.35

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Gary Belleville and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author thanks SABR member Gary Belleville for research assistance.

Photo credit: Elmira Star-Gazette, May 18, 1957.

Sources

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.

Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet do not offer box scores for minor-league games, but the May 18, 1957, editions of several central New York newspapers ran box scores.

Notes

1 Since Major League Baseball tightened its definition of a no-hitter in 1991, Harvey Haddix is no longer officially credited with a no-hitter. (The definition adopted at that time requires no hits to be surrendered throughout the entire game, not just through the first nine innings.) Haddix’s extraordinary performance had been widely publicized by that point, however.

2 A Newspapers.com search conducted in December 2024 indicated that Fred Haddix’s last previous professional start took place on August 25, 1950, near the end of his only known previous professional season. He pitched a complete game for the Marion (Ohio) Red Sox of the Class D Ohio-Indiana League, beating the Springfield Giants 11-4. George Scott, “Marsox Now Lead League by Two Games,” Marion (Ohio) Star, August 26, 1950: 14. (Haddix subsequently pitched in relief in a postseason playoff game.)

3 Ben was born in 1923, Harvey in 1925, and Fred in 1930.

4 “Grimm’s No-Hitter Beats New Carlisle,” Springfield (Ohio) Daily News, October 2, 1948: 5.

5 “Catawba High’s Fred Haddix Is Young ‘Walters,’” Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, May 22, 1949: 7.

6 George Scott, “League Leaders’ Edge Cut to 2½ Games,” Marion Star, August 8, 1949: 14.

7 A.L. McClain, “No Brotherly Love on Field for Three Haddix Brothers,” Marion Star, June 30, 1950: 21. Ben Haddix played five minor-league seasons – 1942 and 1947-1950 – peaking at Class B.

8 He hadn’t gone all that far to begin with: Marion, Ohio, is only about 60 miles from South Vienna, Ohio, where Fred Haddix attended high school.

9 Jim Nichols, “Amateur Action Slated in MV, City Leagues,” Dayton (Ohio) Journal Herald, May 5, 1951: 8.

10 “Chapman-Haddix Vows Exchanged,” Springfield Daily News, April 7, 1953: 13.

11 “Twin Girls Included in 200 Births Reported,” Springfield News-Sun, June 20, 1954: 6A; “18 Clark County Men Are Inducted Into U.S. Army,” Springfield Daily News, November 11, 1954: 5; “Frederick E. Haddix” (obituary), Legacy.com (reprinted from Dayton Daily News), accessed December 2024, https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/dayton/name/frederick-haddix-obituary?id=15273340.

12 Bob Sullivan, “The News of Sports,” Springfield News-Sun, May 19, 1957: 2C.

13 Moses Crutchfield, “Harvey Haddix’s Brother, Fred, Gains Spotlight in Patriot Camp,” Greensboro (North Carolina) Daily News, April 9, 1957: 4:2.

14 “Patriots Cut Six from Club Roster,” Greensboro Daily News, May 14, 1957: 2:3. The author reviewed box scores in the Greensboro newspaper to confirm that Haddix’s five appearances were all made in relief, finding confirmation in box scores published on April 23, April 27, May 3, May 7, and May 9.

15 “Haddix’ No-Hitter Widens Corning Lead,” Elmira (New York) Star-Gazette, May 18, 1957: 6.

16 “Standings,” Elmira (New York) Advertiser, May 17, 1957: 10. Monchak and Harvey Haddix later served together on the Pittsburgh Pirates’ coaching staff from 1979 to 1984.

17 Al Mallette, “Wellsville’s DeLeon No-Hits Pioneers,” Elmira Star-Gazette, May 13, 1957: 14. DeLeon’s son, also named Luis DeLeón, pitched seven seasons in the major leagues between 1981 and 1989. “Luis DeLeon,” Baseball-Reference BR Bullpen, accessed December 2024, https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Luis_DeLeon.

18 Those four players – who might not have been on the Corning roster on May 17 – were pitchers Bob Heffner, Merlin Nippert, and Jay Ritchie and catcher-outfielder Russ Gibson.

19 Manager Monchak, a former Philadelphia Phillie, also appeared in four games for Wellsville at age 40.

20 Selinger’s five-season minor-league career peaked at Class A.

21 Christoff briefly reached Triple A in a seven-season career.

22 “Lefty Pitcher Blanks Braves in 5½ Innings,” Elmira Advertiser, May 18, 1957: 8. The other scheduled games were to have been played in Elmira, New York, and Bradford and Erie, Pennsylvania.

23 The Corning Leader of May 18, 1957, published a batter-by-batter summary of Haddix’s start, which served as baseline information for this article, complemented by game accounts. Frank E. Watts Jr., “Haddix No-Hits Wellsville Braves, 2-0,” Corning Leader, May 18, 1957: 9.

24 In the Corning Leader, Watts specified that “there wasn’t a well-hit ball during the entire game by either side.”

25 “Corning Blanks Braves 2-0 on Rainy No-Hitter,” Wellsville (New York) Daily Reporter, May 18, 1957: 5, https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=wdr19570518-01.1.5&srpos=1&e=——-en-20–1–txt-txIN———-.

26 Game accounts from newspapers in Corning, Elmira, and Wellsville don’t specify who fielded Hamill’s grounder.

27 The Elmira Advertiser said Duvall’s scratch hit went to “deep right,” but the Wellsville and Corning game accounts both say “deep short,” which makes more sense for a hit that drove in only one run with the bases loaded.

28 According to his Sporting News umpire card, Stockman umpired for four seasons in the New York-Penn League (1956-1959) and then left pro baseball. Umpire card for Jerry Stockman, accessed via Retrosheet in December 2024, https://www.retrosheet.org/TSNUmpireCards/Stockman-Jerry.jpg. Stockman’s umpiring partner, Philip McCarthy, had an even briefer pro career. He was hired by the New York-Penn League on March 27, 1957; released by the league on August 30; and was not known to have worked professionally again. The Sporting News umpire card for Philip McCarthy, accessed via Retrosheet in December 2024, https://www.retrosheet.org/TSNUmpireCards/McCarthy-Philip.jpg.

29 Watts, “Haddix No-Hits Wellsville Braves, 2-0.”

30 Watts.

31 Corning also tied one game.

32 Bob Davies, “Smith Tested, Stamped ‘OK’ With Win Over Corning,” Olean Times Herald, June 20, 1957: 14.

33 Frank Watts Jr., “NYP Race Tightens as Sox Lose 4-2, O’Day Opposes Brightwell Today,” Corning Leader, June 22, 1957: 10. On a 1957 questionnaire filled out for baseball researcher William Weiss, Haddix listed his ambition in baseball as “to go all the way”; perhaps he lost interest quickly. Weiss questionnaire for Fred Haddix dated April 16, 1957, and made available through SABR.org, https://sabr.org/weiss-questionnaires/frederick-eugene-haddix-63790/.

34 “Harvey Haddix, Brother Become Fathers of Girls,” Springfield Daily News, December 2, 1957: 5.

35 “Frederick E. Haddix.”