As with the A’s no-no, I originally profiled the White Sox no-hitter for my earlier “Highlights of the 1970’s” thread from years ago, but I wanted to include it in my recent “No-Hitter” thread that I started last year.
And as I did with the Oakland card, I pictured the man who closed it out, in this case Francisco Barrios, who relieved John Odom in the sixth inning, pitching the final four innings and closing out this bit of history.
What follows below is the original text from my first post on August 12th, 2014:
“White Sox pitchers John Odom (an Oakland A's pitcher up until the prior season), and Francisco Barrios teamed up to stifle the A's on July 28th, 1976, with Odom keeping Oakland hitless for the first five innings, and Barrios wrapping it up the final four.
While it was a no-hitter, it certainly was not perfect, as Odom managed to walk NINE A's batters in his five innings of work, and future Hall of Famers Billy Williams scoring the lone A's run in the bottom of the fourth inning when Claudell Washington stole second, allowing Williams to score on a bad throw from catcher Jim Essian.
All told, Odom and Barrios walked a combined eleven batters, while striking out five and allowing three stolen bases.
But in the end it was (and is) an official no-hitter, and would end up being the last combined no-hitter until the California Angels pulled the trick on April 11, 1990 when Mark Langston and Mike Witt combined to no-hit the Mariners.
Just a year later in 1991 there would be TWO more combined no-hitters, spun by the Baltimore Orioles and then the Atlanta Braves.
Since then there have been two more combined no-no's, the July 12th effort by the Pittsburgh Pirates against the Houston Astros in 1997, and the June 11, 2003 no-hitter thrown by SIX Houston Astros against the New York Yankees.
Ironically enough, the 1976 combined no-no would end up being one of Blue Moon Odom's last Major League games, as he was out of the Majors after only eight games in 1976, finishing off a 13-year career.”