McGill on a hunt through history for minor league no-hitters
From FOX 44 at MyChamplainValley.com on March 13, 2014, on SABR member Chuck McGill:
Some of baseball’s most forward-thinking minds are meeting at the annual SABR Analytics conference this week in Phoenix but in Westford, VT, SABR (Society of American Baseball Researchers) member Chuck McGill is focused on backwards thinking. And he’s focused on just one number, zero.
Chuck McGill is on a hunt through history for minor league no-hitters. He set down the path almost by accident while researching his favorite player, Fred Lynn. McGill came across one of Lynn’s games in which a teammate had thrown a no-hitter.
“I thought there must be a lot of no-hitters in the minor leagues because there’s been so many teams and leagues.” said Chuck from his desk at the National Weather Service at Burlington International Airport. “So, I started looking into it and I realized that a lot of them have been documented already but I also thought there must be a lot that haven’t been documented. And that sent me on my journey.”
The 1988 Lyndon State grad spends his days as the Information Technology Officer for the NWS but in his free time, he’s scouring hundred year old box scores from long-forgotten games in long-forgotten leagues.
“I think it’s fairly exciting when I do find one.” said McGill. “Knowing that it’s something that has kind of been forgotten to history and it’s going to help our knowledge of the minor leagues a bit more. Since I’ve started I’ve found around 400 games. And I’m sure there’s a lot more out there to find.”
When he finds a lost no-hitter, he tweets it from his handle @MiLgNoHitters and adds it to his master spreadsheet. Since the beginning of March, McGill has added nearly 40 no-hitters to the master list.
Read the full article here: http://www.mychamplainvalley.com/sports-story/d/story/no-hitter-chuck/11104/Am5bOGsiX0GRlFinE5WudQ
Originally published: March 14, 2014. Last Updated: March 14, 2014.