With Clayton Kershaw's recent no-hitter, and talks of "most
dominant" games pitched in baseball history, it brought to mind Rick
Wise and HIS unique feat: slamming TWO home runs while throwing a
no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds (aka "The Big Red Machine")
Now while I'm not trying to put Wise's no-hitter in the company of
Kershaw's absolute domination, or even Kerry Woods 20-strikeout game
back in 1998 (the most unbelievable game I ever saw. Period.), it is
worth designing a "highlight" card for my series
here on the blog.
So please take a look at the card design I came up with:
Follows my other 1972 "highlight" cards.
I WAS hoping to find a usable image of Wise during his no-hitter, but none of the images I found were high-res enough.
If I do find one I'll definitely be redesigning the card.
Wise's incredible game took place on June 23 (43 years to the day I
am writing this actually!), 1971, and as I mentioned earlier, was
against the freakin' "Big Red Machine" of Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Tony
Perez et al!
Talk about an extra "oomph" of an accomplishment!
The guy goes out and no-hits a killer line-up, and also slams TWO
home runs, good for three of the four runs the Phillies score that day
(a Roger Freed double accounting for the other)!
It's easy to forget that the guy put together a really solid Major
League career, finishing with a 188-181 record to go along with a 3.69
earned run average, 30 shutouts and 1647 strikeouts over 506 games (455
starts) between 1964 and 1982.
Yes he'll always be remembered for being the "wrong" side of the
Steve Carlton trade (ironically enough during the off-season after his
no-hit year), but if not for an injury-plagued season in 1974 while with
the Red Sox, he could have been a 200-game
winner.
