Minor Miracle

You don’t see this type of game often. In fact, something happened in this contest had taken place only nine times before.

On August 23, 1992 in Clearwater, FL, the hometown Clearwater Phillies and Winter Haven Red Sox squared off in front of about 1,500 fans at Jack Russell Stadium, where the major league Phillies played their spring training games.

If you were rooting for the Clearwater team, there was good news: their starting pitcher threw a no-hitter. There was bad news, too: the starter for Winter Haven also threw a no-hitter. But there was more good news for the Clearwater faithful: their team won 1-0, scoring a run without a hit.

It’s been 32 years since this double no-hitter took place; some of the principals, now in their mid-fifties, went on to play in the majors, some stayed in the game after retiring, and several talked about what baseball in general, and that game in particular, meant to them.

At the time, Southern Florida was being ravaged by the category five Hurricane Andrew. Under threatening skies, the game began. Andy Carter, a left-hander from the Philadelphia suburbs, started for Clearwater, while right-hander Scott Bakkum from Wisconsin, was on the mound for the Sox.

“We were really trying to just get a game in and get finished before the weather’s settled in,” said John Timberlake, then General Manager of the Clearwater club and currently the Phillies Director of Florida Operations.

In the fifth inning, Timberlake left his office to check out the game. When he reached the bleachers, he saw two season-ticket holders in their usual seats.

“Take a look at the scoreboard,” suggested one of them. Timberlake saw that Carter was pitching a no-hitter.  He made a remark about Clearwater had a no-hitter.

“Take another look,” said the fan, and that’s when Timberlake saw neither team had a hit.

He said during the seventh inning stretch “you start kind of hearing the buzz about the ballpark, the amount of buzz that that many people could create. You just watch the thing play out, so that for me was the interesting thing, you know, we wind up scoring without a hit.”

Bakkum recalled, “What I remember is, there wasn’t a lot of focus on the game because of the weather that was hitting Florida at that time. I can’t remember the name of the hurricane (Andrew), but it was hitting Miami. So we didn’t know if we’re gonna play. And we did have a rain delay during the game.”

In the fifth inning the game was held up for 35 minutes. Clearwater manager Bill Dancy said he and his pitching coach discussed whether to keep Carter in the game when it as resumed. He kept Carter in the game because he believed the pitcher “had bullets left in his gun.”

Bakkum wanted to stay in the game, saying, “I had just come off rehab. I know I didn’t want to get cut short because of rain. So, yeah, I felt fine.”

The only run of the game came in the bottom of the seventh. Bakkum walked left fielder Phil Geisler and designated hitter Troy Rusk. The next batter, right fielder Gene Schall, bunted the runners to second and third. Third baseman Ken Sirak, in a suicide squeeze, bunted up the first base line and Geisler scored.

“I think he bunted it up the first baseline, and I think they tried to make a play, but I don’t remember. I don’t think there was a play at the plate, said Geisler. “I think I just ran across.

“Yeah, Kenny made a good bunt, and then, you know, obviously, Andy Carter was the guy of the day for throwing so well for that long,” Geisler continued. “We were just impressed with him, how well he had thrown and then this was kind of the icing on the cake, to throw a no hitter and then to do it against another guy (who threw a no-hitter).”

After Geisler, 56, stopped playing the game, he was a scout for the Seattle Mariners. He is now retired, living in Wisconsin.

Dancy doesn’t remember if he called for the play or Sirak did it on his own, but he said as a young manager he would do suicide squeezes and double steals.

In more than 40 years in baseball as a player, coach, manager and field coordinator, Dancy said seeing a double no-hitter “ranks near the top” of things he’s seen in the game. “It’s pretty miraculous,” he said.

There has never been a double no hitter in the major leagues, but nine have happened in the minors. Prior to the Clearwater-Winter Haven game, the last double-no hit game happened in 1940.

(The closest to a complete double no-hitter in the big leagues happened May 2, 1917, when Cincinnati’s Fred Toney and Chicago’s Hippo Vaughn each pitched nine innings without giving up a hit. The Reds won 1-0 in the 10th with two hits off Vaughn, and Toney finished the tenth without surrendering a hit.)

“When a pitcher hurls a no-hitter, you tip your hat to him,” Dancy told the Tampa Tribune in the next day’s edition. “Today, I tipped my hat to both pitchers.”

Bakkum told the paper, “It’s disappointing to lose, but it was a great game.” It was also disappointing because it was his professional debut. “I was just worried about, you know, doing a good job and it being my first actual start in the minors,” he said. He might be the only pitcher in baseball history to toss a no-hitter in his first game and lose.

Carter recently recalled that “I was pretty sure about that (throwing a no-hitter), but the other team…we don’t have a hit, they don’t have a hit either.”

“The actual details of the game were… a little fuzzy at this point because it was just a very quick game,” Schall said recently. “I don’t think we realized the magnitude of it because knowing Andy had a no-hitter, but not realizing that Scott Bakkum was also throwing a no-hitter, really didn’t come out until later on.”

After retiring, Schall joined the Phillies’ scouting department, and eventually worked as a cross-checker. Five years ago he joined NCSA, an organization that assists high school athletes prepare for college and obtain scholarships.

Schall and Bakkum became teammates for the Phillies AAA team in Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, PA, when the Phils acquired him in June of 1996.

“I don’t think anyone realized how rare that really was to what happened, especially in a professional game. And I know shortly after that, Andy came in and said the Hall of Fame requested maybe a hat or a glove or something from that side. it was kind of one of those things that as it was going on, it wasn’t really gaining a lot of attention,” said Schall.

“We knew Andy threw a no-hitter, but I think it really didn’t come out until afterwards that Scott Beckham, who we actually traded for later on, also threw a no-hitter,” Schall added the fact that both pitchers were throwing no hitters wasn’t being tracked too closely.

“I think it all happened so fast,” said Geisler. “I mean, you kind of keep it quiet during the game (that it’s a no-hitter), right? You’re not jumping up and down saying it’s a no hitter, it’s a no hitter. So that’s not something you talk about, but by the end of the game it was like, wait a minute, did this just really happen? I think everybody was kind of in shock because we knew what we were doing, meaning Andy Carter, because we were behind him going, this is going pretty good for AC, but hey, we gotta get a run or two maybe we  can win this game. You know that was our focus at the time, but at the end of it you just go, I just can’t believe that happened.”

Carter said, “I was throwing strikes and they were swinging at first pitches left and right and popping up and grounding out. I don’t think I was overpowering at all. I just don’t know if they weren’t seeing the ball good.”

In a wire service story on the game, Carter said, “I didn’t have my best stuff in the beginning. After the rain delay I felt much better.”

Carter previously pitched a no-hitter in 1988 against the Augusta (GA) Green Jackets in the South Atlantic League and was named the Phillies’ minor league pitcher of the year that season. He made his major league debut on May 3, 1994 against the San Diego Padres, and hit the first batter he faced, catcher Brad Ausmus. Pitcher A. J. Sager bunted, moving Ausmus to second. Carter then hit second baseman Luis Lopez, and home plate umpire Jim Quick, without issuing a warning, threw him out of the game.

There had been a benches-clearing brawl between the two teams the game before.

“Quick said I ordered Carter to throw at their hitters, which is ridiculous,” Phillies Manager Jim Fregosi told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “I have no idea what was in (Quick’s mind) but whatever it was, it was ridiculous.”

Catcher Darren Daulton told the paper, “It said right there (on the scoreboard) that this was the kid’s big-league debut. It should have been obvious that he wasn’t going to be throwing at anyone.”

What was it like for Carter to pitch in the stadium he watched the game in and in front of the hometown fans?

“It was cool, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I thought I always put unrealistic expectations on myself and you’re always like pressing. You have a bad day, it feels double bad because you let your city down,” he said.

Carter appeared in 24 games with the Phillies in the 1994 and 1995 seasons. His career was affected by an injury to his left hand.

“I went back to Scranton and then we were in a brawl with the Blue Jays, and I ruptured a tendon in my throwing hand and my fingers and then, I came back that year at the end of the year, but I and then it just took time to heal and they didn’t resign me. So then I went to the Giants, did the following year in spring training with them and AAA with them, then I went to the Mets the following year (and in) spring training got released, and then went to independent ball, then I went to Taiwan and back to Independent ball and that was it.”

Taiwan, he continued, “was nuts. It was really different. The games are fixed and it was one of the strangest places. I mean, the first two weeks I was there was cool with a different experience to see a different culture. They’re good baseball players, but the fields are, you know, kind of cruddy. And you play three days, get four days off, you play four days, get three days off, but you’re practicing every day.  Once we found out the teams were on the fix, I just wanted to finish the year get out my contract and move on from there, so that’s what I did,”

Carter, 56, moved to Christmas, FL, in 2004 and runs a tree and clearing businesses – which is always needed in the Sunshine State, even if there isn’t a hurricane. He said he “doesn’t think about that game too much,” but added he was “blessed to be a good athlete when I was young. I was surprised to get drafted when I did because I was a basketball player first. I was glad to have an opportunity to concentrate on baseball. I learned a lot, if you don’t do good you’re gone, it’s that type of deal; I was able to to hang on for a decent amount of years.  I got hurt, bounced around, I got tired of bus rides, If there’s a 22-year old doing the same thing you can do at 28 you’re out of there. It’s a little cutthroat, but I wouldn’t change anything for the world.”

Bakkum pitched in the Boston Red Sox minor league system until he was traded to the Phillies midway through the 1996 season.

”Before I went to spring training (in 1997), I had a small tear in my ulnar nerve in my elbow, which usually requires Tommy John if it’s torn, but it wasn’t completely torn. So I went through pretty much the whole spring training before I was able to start throwing again, and by then they had already made up their decisions.

“Baseball was my life until I was done. It was everything to me,” said Bakkum.  He returned to Wisconsin and “tried to figure things out. I didn’t have a contingency plan, so. I kind of just had to find my calling, so to speak.”

Did he feel an emptiness now that his pitching career was over?

“To a degree, but not totally – I’m in construction now.”

That game was special to Bakkum because not only was it a rare occurrence in baseball, it was the only no-hitter he had pitched, at any level.

He had a perfect game going into the ninth inning of a high school game, but with two outs he surrendered a hit.

Now retired, Dancy, 73, is a “baseball lifer.”  It’s the only career he’s ever had; when asked if he ever thought of finding a job outside of the sport, he thought for a moment and said, “Ah, not really. Growing up all I ever did was play baseball.”  In the winters of his youth he’s worked for a friend’s father, but once he started professionally and played winter ball, it’s all he knew and all he’s known.

Dancy played six seasons in the minor leagues with the Phillies and then became a manager in the Phils’ system. He managed at all levels, winning several championships.  In 2005, he made the major leagues when the Phillies appointed him third base coach. He did that for two seasons, then was a minor leauge field coordinator for the Phillies. He managed in the Chicago Cubs farm system and worked for a season as the club’s minor league field coordinator in 2012. The following year he was a field coordinator for the Detroit Tigers.

After the game, Carter thought “I didn’t think people would make a big deal out of it.”

But they did.

A local cable company was broadcasting the game, Timberlake said; video of the game appeared on ESPN’s SportsCenter.  Word of the game went out over wire services.

“We’re back in our offices now, there’s two or three of us, and we’re kind of scrambling to put out a quick press release and the kind of things you would do and our phones start ringing and I mean when I say that our phones start ringing and ringing and everybody and their brother is calling,” recalled Timberlake. “Word’s getting out quickly that this has occurred. People are starting to track it. When’s the last time this happened? Has it ever happened? Da da da.”

One of the calls Timberlake fielded was from the curator of the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, who asked if any artifacts from the game could be sent to him.

“I said, what type of things are you interested in, (such as) lineup cards?” recalled Timberlake. “He said, ‘Sure.’”

In addition to the ball used to make the game’s final out, Timberlake collected Carter and Bakkum’s caps and had the pitchers autograph them. The next day he sent them to the curator.

“About a month later, I received a card from the Baseball Hall of Fame as an honorary member as a donor,” said Timberlake, who’s been with the Phillies organization in Florida since 1986.

The items were part of a traveling exhibition; they’re now in storage but could be on display again.

Neither Carter or Bakkum have seen the items at the Hall of Fame and Museum, but Carter’s brother Jim and Bakkum’s son Cole (a pitcher at St. Cloud University in Minnesota) have been to Cooperstown and saw their family members’ part in history.

According to an article in The Sporting News, here are all the double no-hit games that have occurred in the minor leagues.

Aug. 7, 1886: Oakland’s George Van Haltren beat San Francisco’s Jim McMullin 4-2 in a California League game that featured a lot of runs when you consider neither team had a hit.

Aug. 10, 1902: Convicts, Lunatics and zeroes. Jim Courtwright and the Nevada Lunatics locked up Eli Cates and the Jefferson City Convicts 1-0 in a hitless Missouri Valley League matchup. “Only two or three balls were hit to the outfield during the game,” according to The Sedalia Democrat.

Aug. 1, 1903: Greenville’s Forrest Wright bested Baton Rouge’s Dick Harley 1-0 in this Cotton States League double no-hitter. “Wheeler had the satisfaction of scoring the only run of the game,” The Times-Democrat wrote.

May 1, 1907: In Game 2 of a Cotton States League doubleheader, Meridian Ribboners mystery man Henry Schultz and Jackson Senators lefty Harold Christman both pitched five-inning complete-game no-hitters in a 0-0 tie that took 44 minutes to play.

Aug. 5, 1908: It was also the back end of a doubleheader when neither Bloomington’s Ed Higgins nor Springfield’s S. Grandy allowed a hit in Bloomington’s 1-0 Three-I League victory.

Sept. 5, 1910: The Huntington Johnnies and Wabash Rockeries couldn’t get their bats going in Game 2 of a Class D doubleheader in Wabash, Ind. Huntington’s hurler was named Wentz and Wabash’s was named Scott. “Both pitched airtight ball. Hitless and runless they held their opponents,” the Daily News-Democrat recapped. “At the end of the sixth the gathering shadows and low hanging clouds caused the umps to call the game.”

June 8, 1911: Two aces combined for 30 strikeouts in an 11-inning hitless Class D Mountain States League contest. Charleston’s Dick Niehaus and Huntington’s George Baumgardner both lasted into the 11th inning in Huntington’s 1-0 win.

July 26, 1913: These Blowhards must’ve been lying about their offensive prowess. A pitcher named Manchester threw for the Waycross Blowhards and was countered by Cleo Wilder of the Cordele Babies. Neither team had a hit in the 0-0, five-inning Class D Empire State League game.

Aug. 20, 1952: The first dual no-hitter in 39 years came when Franklin Etchberger of the Bradford Phillies and James Mitchell of the Batavia Clippers dealt in Bradford’s 1-0 win. At least one person thinks there should’ve been a hit that night; the batter who made the final out says he was safe.