May 22, 1901: Noodles Hahn sets record with 16 strikeouts; attains first pitcher’s cycle

On May 22, 1901, Noodles Hahn of the Cincinnati Reds shattered the National League record for most strikeouts in a game since 1893, when the 60-feet-6-inches distance between home plate and the pitcher’s box was established.1 Hahn struck out 16 Boston Beaneaters in the Reds’ 4-3 victory at South End Grounds in Boston. In addition to surpassing Rube Waddell’s record of 13 strikeouts with the 1899 Louisville Colonels, Hahn achieved the first post-1893 pitcher’s cycle,2 defined as “at least one player from each of the nine repeating batting slots (not necessarily in order) struck out by one pitcher in the same game.”3

Hahn had established himself as a top-notch strikeout artist when, as a 20-year-old rookie in 1899, he topped the National League with 145 K’s, en route to a 23-8 record. He repeated as the NL’s whiff king in his sophomore season, fanning 132 batters, although his record was just 16-20. He also tossed the league’s only no-hitter in 1900, whitewashing the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-0, on July 12. Hahn began 1901 as Cincinnati’s Opening Day starter, ending up on the short end of a 4-2 score vs. the Pittsburgh Pirates. After that setback, Hahn went on a six-game winning streak, with a total of 45 strikeouts in 63 innings in his first seven games, to set the stage for his encounter with the Beaneaters on May 22.

The visiting Reds batted first, facing future Hall of Famer Vic Willis, who proceeded to set down Cincinnati’s first three batters, Algie McBride, Dick Harley, and future Hall of Famer Jake Beckley. Hahn took the hill in the bottom of the first frame and struck out Boston’s leadoff batter, future Hall of Famer Billy Hamilton. The next batter, Fred Tenney, touched Hahn for a double; a passed ball put Tenney on third.

Noodles responded by striking out Gene DeMontreville, occupying the third slot in the batting order. But he walked Elmer Smith, who stole second, and he surrendered a two-run single to Herman Long. Hahn also gave up a single to Daff Gammons, before striking out the seventh-place batter, Pat Moran, a rookie catcher appearing in just his fifth major-league game.4 While Hahn did manage to strike out the side in the first inning, he did it in such an irregular manner that he was shackled with a two-run deficit.

Willis continued his mastery of the Reds batters in the second stanza, again setting down the next three in order: future Hall of Famer Sam Crawford, Harry Steinfeldt, and Charlie Irwin. Hahn was both dull and sharp in the bottom of the second inning. He gave up a single to the first-up batter, Malachi Kittridge (occupying the eighth slot in the lineup). Hahn’s mound foe, Willis, attempted to sacrifice, which resulted in Kittridge being forced out at second. Then Hamilton reached base on a muff by center fielder McBride and Tenney got an infield single to load the bases. Undaunted, Hahn struck out the next two batters, DeMontreville and cleanup hitter Smith, to end the threat.

Hahn continued his strikeout march in the third and fourth innings. He fanned fifth-place hitter Long and number-six batter Gammons in the third. Hahn’s only blemish in that frame was an inconsequential single by Moran. In the fourth frame Hahn picked up two more K’s, ninth batter Willis and second-place hitter Tenney, sandwiched around Hamilton’s retirement. With a total of nine whiffs through the first four innings, Hahn took a pause in his strikeout clinic in the fifth and sixth, giving up a harmless base on balls to Long in the former and a nonproductive single to Willis in the latter.

Meanwhile, Willis was also pitching superbly. Through the first six innings he had been touched for a solitary hit (a single by George Magoon) and had walked only a pair (Steinfeldt and Heinie Peitz). He had struck out five – McBride, Harley, Crawford, and Hahn twice. He was sailing along with his two-run advantage. He continued his cruise by retiring Crawford leading off the seventh. But then he encountered rough seas. He was rocked for a double by Steinfeldt and an RBI single by Irwin, which cut Boston’s lead to 2-1.

Hahn resumed his parade of strikeout victims in the bottom of the seventh by fanning Tenney for the second time, thereby reaching double digits in K’s for the first time in his career.5 After a single by DeMontreville, who then stole second and third, Hahn induced Smith to pop out to the catcher and then set down Long with a repeat whiff. He now had 11 strikeouts, spread out over eight of the nine batting positions; he needed only the number-eight slot, occupied by Kittridge, to complete the pitcher’s cycle.

With the Reds down by one run, things changed in the eighth inning. Hahn initiated it by hitting a single. He was forced out when McBride grounded to first sacker Tenney, who fired the ball to shortstop Long covering the keystone. Willis then walked Harley, which put McBride on second.

Here’s how the rest of the frame was described in the Boston Journal: “Hamilton played so deep for Beckley that [his] long line hit to centre dropped safely. McBride scored easily, and Harley came around to the plate on Hamilton’s poor throw to third baseman DeMontreville. Beckley took third on the error, and scored on Crawford’s single to right. Steinfeldt forced Crawford, but Irwin shot a fast one past DeMontreville. Magoon, too seemed to have picked out a safe place to drop the ball, but Long ran out into left field and made a remarkable catch.”6 Cincinnati had taken a 4-2 lead.

With the score now in his favor going into the bottom of the eighth, Hahn fanned Gammons, but surrendered a triple to Moran. That brought up Kittridge as the potential tying run. Hahn responded by striking out Kittridge. It was his 13th strikeout in the game, equaling Waddell’s two-year-old NL record for most strikeouts in a game since 1893. Simultaneously, it gave Hahn the pitcher’s cycle – the first one accomplished with the 60-foot-6-inch distance between home plate and the pitcher’s box. Hahn then whiffed Willis, stranding Moran at third, to establish a new NL record for strikeouts in a game (since 1893).

The top of the ninth started off serenely for Willis as he retired the first two Reds, Peitz and Hahn, the latter striking out for the third time. Then things got hectic. McBride singled and an error by DeMontreville allowed Harley to get on base. A wild pitch put the runners on third and second. Willis overcame this difficulty, fanning Beckley for his seventh strikeout of the game to end the uprising.

On to the bottom of the ninth. Hamilton hit to short and was safe when Magoon made a wide throw for an error. Tenney singled, his third hit of the game. DeMontreville singled to right, driving in Hamilton to make the score 4-3 and sending Tenney to third with no outs. But Boston missed the chance to put the potential winning run in scoring position when, according to the Boston Globe, “Crawford made a long [futile] throw [to third] to try to cut off Tenney], but DeMontreville was loafing at first and lost a chance to go down [to second on the throw to third].”7

This mistake was fatal. With two strikes, Smith “in turning away allowed the ball to tip off his bat into the catcher’s hands,” reported the Globe.8 It was Hahn’s 15th strikeout.

Even more devastating for Boston was DeMontreville’s subsequent performance. He had twice finished in the NL’s top five in steals and had stolen two bases in the seventh inning of this game. As reported in the Boston Post: “[DeMontrevile] now started to add another [steal] to his collection. [Catcher] Heinie Peitz, however, threw to second with speed enough to catch him in the act, without allowing Tenney to score [the tying run].”9 The caught-stealing left the Beaneaters down to their final out, and Hahn then ended the game by whiffing Long for his 16th strikeout.

Hahn continued operating his strikeout machine for the remainder of the 1901 campaign, even as the Reds fell into the NL cellar with a 52-87-3 record.10 For the third consecutive season, he topped the NL in strikeouts, with his 239 strikeouts equaling Cy Seymour of the 1898 New York Giants for the most in a season since 1893.11 Possession of this mark was short-lived as Waddell, with the American League’s Philadelphia Athletics, claimed the major-league record with 302 K’s in 1903, the same season that the Giants’ Christy Mathewson took over the NL throne with 267 K’s. (Mathewson also overtook Hahn by becoming the first pitcher with multiple pitcher’s cycles, accomplishing the feat in 1904 against the St. Louis Cardinals, in 1906 against the Brooklyn Superbas, and in 1910 against the Pirates. 12)

Hahn held to the strikeout mark for a nine-inning game until 1933, when Dizzy Dean of the St. Louis Cardinals fanned 17 Chicago Cubs on July 30.13

Author’s Note

The author introduced the concept of the pitcher’s cycle in two presentations at SABR 52 in 2024. The Baseball Research Journal published his article on pitcher’s cycles in its Fall 2024 issue. In researching this article, he used game accounts from four Boston newspapers (Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Journal, and Boston Post) to deduce the game’s play-by-play events. The game accounts provided in Cincinnati newspapers (Cincinnati Enquirer and Cincinnati Commercial Tribune) were verbatim accounts of the Boston Globe and the Boston Journal respectively; the Cincinnati Post had only a box score of the game. The events in the deduced play-by-play are consistent with the stats shown in the Retrosheet box score. The complete deduced play-by-play is in this endnote.14 

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Mike Huber and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author thanks Dixie Tourangeau for sharing his research on pitcher’s cycles prior to 1893 and Jonathan Frankel for his superb collaboration in researching Cy Seymour’s strikeouts in 1898. The author also thanks John Fredland, Kurt Blumenau, and Gary Bellville for excellent guidance on revising the first draft of this article.

Photo credit: Noodles Hahn, Trading Card Database.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BSN/BSN190105220.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1901/B05220BSN1901.htm

Notes

1 Charlie Sweeney of the Providence Grays has the NL record for the most strikeouts in a game prior to 1893 – 19 strikeouts on June 7, 1884, vs. the Boston Beaneaters.

2 Herm Krabbenhoft, “The Pitcher’s Cycle: Definition and Achievers (1893-2023),” Baseball Research Journal, Volume 53, Number 2 (Fall 2024): 34.

3 There were at least two pitcher’s cycles achieved prior to 1893, when the distance between home plate and the pitcher’s box was 50 feet. The first was by Mickey Welch of the New York Gothams vs. the Cleveland Blues on August 28, 1884. Harry Simmons, “An Overlooked Feat,” The Sporting News, October 23, 1941: 6; George Bulkley, “Why Did Mickey Smile?,” Baseball Research Journal, Volume 11, 1982: 127. The second was Lady Baldwin of the Detroit Wolverines vs. the Chicago White Stockings on August 20, 1886. Dixie Tourangeau, email to the author on November 20, 2024.

4 Moran went on to a 14-season playing career with three NL teams. He then managed the Philadelphia Phillies for four seasons, winning the NL pennant in 1915, and the Reds for five seasons, leading Cincinnati to the World Series title in 1919.

5 His previous high was nine strikeouts on October 6, 1899, against Louisville.

6 “Strikeouts A Plenty,” Boston Journal, May 23, 1901: 8.

7 “Headwork Lacking. Boston’s Slowness and Hahn’s Great Pitching Give Cincis Victory,” Boston Globe, May 23, 1901: 5.

8 “Headwork Lacking. Boston’s Slowness and Hahn’s Great Pitching Give Cincis Victory.”

9 “Selee’s Men Make Game Fight, but Fail to Win,” Boston Post, May 23, 1901: 3.

10 Boston finished fourth (69-69-2), 20½ games behind the pennant-winning Pittsburgh Pirates.

11 Both Hahn’s Retrosheet Player Profile Page and the ICI (Information Concepts Inc.) game-by-game sheets, which were generated for The Baseball Encyclopedia published by Macmillan in 1969, give a season total of 239 strikeouts, matching Seymour’s mark. Retrosheet’s Box Score File for the 1901 season, however, credits Hahn with 238 strikeouts. Based on definitive research by Jonathan Frankel and the author, it has been determined that Seymour actually struck out 256 batters in 1898, not 239 as claimed in the ICI sheets and repeated on the Retrosheet and Baseball-Reference websites. This information will be provided to Pete Palmer for his consideration to incorporate the correction in his database, which is used by Retrosheet and Baseball-Reference.

12 Johnny Vander Meer was the first Reds pitcher who hurled two PCs, one in 1941 (September 6, vs. St. Louis) and the other in 1942 (July 12, first game, vs. Philadelphia). Jim Maloney also hurled two pitcher’s cycles for the Reds, both in 1963. In the history of the Reds, the pitcher’s cycle and the batter’s cycle have been accomplished 16 and 13 times, respectively. As of 2025, the most recent pitcher’s cycle was by Hunter Greene (July 11, 2024, vs. the Colorado Rockies); the last batter’s cycle was by Elly De La Cruz (June 23, 2023, vs. the Atlanta Braves).

13 Until Dean’s 17-strikeout game, Hahn shared the record with three pitchers who also struck out 16 batters in nine-inning games: the Giants’ Mathewson (October 3, 1904, vs.  St. Louis); Waddell, with the St. Louis Browns (July 29, 1908, vs. Philadelphia); and the Superbas’ Nap Rucker (July 24, 1909, second game, vs. St. Louis). As of 2025, Hahn’s 16-strikeout game is still the Cincinnati team record for the most strikeouts in a game – nine innings – although he now shares it with Maloney (May 21, 1963, vs. the Milwaukee Braves) and Ron Villone (September 29, 2000, vs. St. Louis). Maloney also surpassed Hahn for the most strikeouts in a season by a Reds pitcher when he amassed 265 K’s in 1963.

14 Here is the deduced play-by-play:

First Inning (Cincinnati): McBride, out on unknown play. Harley, out on unknown play. Beckley, out on unknown play. [0 Runs, 0 Hits, 0 Errors, 0 LOB

First Inning (Boston): Hamilton, struck out. Tenney, doubled; advanced to third on a combination of a passed ball and a stolen base. DeMontreville, struck out. Smith, walked; stole second base. Long, singled, batting in Tenney and Smith. Gammons, singled, advancing Long to second base (or perhaps third base). Moran, struck out. [2 Runs, 3 Hits, 0 Errors, 2 LOB

Second Inning (Cincinnati): Crawford, out on unknown play. Steinfeldt, out on unknown play. Irwin, out on unknown play. [0 Runs, 0 Hits, 0 Errors, 0 LOB

Second Inning (Boston): Kittridge, singled. Willis, safe on fielder’s choice force-out of Kittridge at second base. Hamilton, safe on fielding error by center fielder McBride; Willis advanced to second base on the play. Tenney, singled, advancing Willis to third base and Hamilton to second base. DeMontreville, struck out. Smith, struck out. [0 Runs, 2 Hits, 1 Error, 3 LOB

Third Inning (Cincinnati): Magoon, singled. Peitz, out on unknown play. Hahn, struck out. McBride, out on unknown play. [0 Runs, 1 Hit, 0 Errors, 1 LOB

Third Inning (Boston): Long, struck out. Gammons, struck out. Moran, singled. Kittridge, out on unknown play. [0 Runs, 1 Hit, 0 Errors, 1 LOB

Fourth Inning (Cincinnati): Harley, out on unknown play. Beckley, out on unknown play. Crawford, out on unknown play. [0 Runs, 0 Hits, 0 Errors, 0 LOB

Fourth Inning (Boston): Willis, struck out. Hamilton, out on unknown play. Tenney, struck out. [0 Runs, 0 Hits, 0 Errors, 0 LOB

Fifth Inning (Cincinnati): Steinfeldt, walked. Irwin, out on unknown play. Magoon, out on unknown play. Peitz, walked. Hahn, struck out. [0 Runs, 0 Hits, 0 Errors, 2 LOB

Fifth Inning (Boston): DeMontreville, out on unknown play. Smith, out on unknown play. Long, walked; stole second base. Gammons, out on unknown play. [0 Runs, 1 Hit, 0 Errors, 1 LOB

Sixth Inning (Cincinnati): McBride, out on unknown play. Harley, out on unknown play. Beckley, out on unknown play. [0 Runs, 0 Hits, 0 Errors, 0 LOB

Sixth Inning (Boston): Moran, out on unknown play. Kittridge, out on unknown play. Willis, singled. Hamilton, out on unknown play. [0 Runs, 1 Hit, 0 Errors, 1 LOB

Seventh Inning (Cincinnati): Crawford, out at first on a bunted groundball. Steinfieldt, doubled. Irwin, singled, batting in Steinfeldt. Magoon, out on unknown play. Peitz, out on unknown play. [1 Run, 2 Hits, 0 Errors, 1 LOB

Seventh Inning (Boston): Tenney, struck out. DeMontreville, singled; stole second base; stole third base. Smith, popped out to the catcher. Long, struck out. [0 Runs, 1 Hit, 0 Errors, 1 LOB

Eighth Inning (Cincinnati): Hahn, singled. McBride, safe on a fielder’s choice force out of Hahn at second base (Tenney to Long). Harley, walked, advancing McBride to second. Beckley, singled, batting in McBride and advancing Harley to third base; Harley scored on a fielding error (either an error by Hamilton, throwing to third base, or an error by DeMontreville’s mishandling of Hamilton’s throw); Beckley advanced to second base on Hamilton’s throw to third and then advanced to third base on the fielding error. Crawford, singled, batting in Beckley. Steinfeldt, safe on a fielder’s choice force-out of Crawford at second base. Irwin, singled; Steinfeldt advanced to third base. Magoon, flied out to shortstop Long. [2 Runs, 4 Hits, 1 Error, 2 LOB

Eighth Inning (Boston): Gammons, struck out. Moran, tripled. Kittridge, struck out. Willis, struck out. [0 Runs, 1 Hit, 0 Errors, 1 LOB

Ninth Inning (Cincinnati): Peitz, out on unknown play. Hahn, struck out. McBride, singled. Harley, safe on fielding error by DeMontreville; McBride moved to second base on the play. Both McBride and Harley advanced a base on a wild pitch by Willis. Beckley, struck out. [0 Runs, 1 Hit, 1 Error, 2 LOB

Ninth Inning (Boston): Hamilton, safe on a fielding error by Magoon. Tenney, singled, advancing Hamilton to second base. DeMontreville, singled, batting in Hamilton and advancing Tenney to third base. Smith, struck out. DeMontreville was caught stealing, catcher to second. Long, struck out. [1 Run, 2 Hits, 1 Error, 1 LOB

NOTE: One of the three “out on unknown play” events for McBride was a strikeout. Likewise for Harley, one of the three “out on unknown play” events was a strikeout. Similarly for Crawford, one of the two “out on unknown play” events was a strikeout.