Take a look at the card:
Improbable, historically odd, and “kind of” ugly, the no-hitter was achieved in Hollomon’s very first start in the Major Leagues.
But there’s so much more to this story: in beating the Athletics 6-0, Hollomon also went 2-3 with three runs batted in at the plate. These would be the only hits Hollomon would get in his Major League career.
About this career, it turns out it would last 22 games, all in 1953! Yep, he throws a no-hitter in his first start, gets beat up in his subsequent start, then performs poorly the rest of the way to end up with a 3-7 career record, with a 5.23 earned run average and 25 K’s over 65.1 innings of work.
In that no-hitter, Hollomon walked five batters, struck out only three, and according to accounts of the game, Athletics players made hard contact many times over the course of the game, only to find that there was a St. Louis Browns player right there to snare the ball.
Hollomon is STILL the only modern player to achieve this feat to this day, although there were two pitchers before the mound was moved back to 60’ 6” who also did the same: Bumpus Jones and Ted Breitenstein.
Incredible.
