June 15, 1938: Johnny Vander Meer’s Second Straight No-Hitter (and the first Ebbets Field night game)

Let’s let Bob Considine of the INS news service describe it:

The good sharp left arm of Johnny Vander Meer carved an immortal niche in baseball’s hall of fame for its owner tonight when the Cincinnati rookie pitched his second consecutive no-hit game. Victorious in a no-hitter last Saturday against the Boston Bees, the young southpaw added nine more innings to his bizarre record tonight to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 6-0, and become the first pitcher in the history of baseball to turn the trick.

The feat that evaded Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Grover Alexander and other immortals had been approached only twice before tonight. Howard Ehmke of the Athletics and Dazzy Vance of the Dodgers followed up no-hit games with one-hitters. Previously to his two no-hit games, Vander Meer had allowed the Giants only two hits [actually, three hits].

He walked six men [actually, he walked eight] and had the sell-out crowd of 38,748 on the edge of its collective seat throughout the thrilling contest. But when things were toughest Johnny was at his best, with a dipping curve and first-class fast ball that confounded the Dodgers when hits meant runs.

One Dodger, Babe Phelps, got as far as third base. That tense moment came along in the ninth inning when Vander Meer appalled the congregation by walking Phelps, Lavagetto and Camilli in succession, after retiring Buddy Hassett on an easy roller. In the face of this crisis, with every fan in the park rooting wildly for him, Vander Meer forced Ernie Koy to force Phelps at the plate on a roller to Lew Riggs, and then accomplished his heroic feat by coaxing Lippy Durocher to fly to center field.

A headline:

And the scratchy box score:

And a postscript: Vander Meer was 23 years old when he allowed seven hits over 36 innings in four complete games, June 5 to June 19 of 1938, which is probably the MLB record for least hits allowed by a pitcher in four straight starts. He only struck out 11 hitters in the two no-hitters, and had only 19 Ks over the four-game stretch.