July 28, 1875: The 1st No-Hitter

July 28, 1875, 150 years ago: The Philadelphia White Stockings beat the Chicago White Stockings, 4-0, in a National Association game at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia. Joe Borden pitches, and allows no hits. It is not merely the 1st no-hitter ever pitched in professional baseball: It is the 1st no-hitter than anyone can recall ever having been pitched, anywhere.

Despite the heroics of Al Spalding (later to be a manager, team executive, and sporting-goods magnate) and Candy Cummings (the apparent inventor of the curveball), at this point, the pitcher was considered the least important person on the field. This would pretty much remain so until overhand pitching was legalized in 1884. Before that, it was all underhand -- hence, "pitching" instead of "throwing."

Joseph Emley Borden was born on May 9, 1854 in Jacobstown, in North Hanover Township, Burlington County, New Jersey, about 40 miles northeast of Philadelphia. He was pitching for an amateur team in Philadelphia when the White Stockings -- also known as simply the Whites, and as the Phillies, a few years before the team now known by that name was founded -- needed a replacement pitcher, and the man they'd signed was not yet available.

He made his 1st appearance on July 24, and was beaten by the other Philadelphia team in the NA, the Philadelphia Athletics, 11-4. But on the 28th, he allowed no hits to the team that would one day be named the Chicago Cubs. He made 7 appearances, going just 2-4, but both wins were shutouts.

The Cubs-to-be did not yet have the players by whom they would be best known: Spalding was with the Boston Red Stockings (the team that would become the Braves), Mike "King" Kelly was with the Brooklyn Atlantics, and Adrian Anson, not yet a team captain and thus not yet known as "Cap," was with the Athletics. As a result, they had trouble putting runs together.

In fact, the earliest known game in which a team failed to score a run was by a Chicago team -- not the White Stockings/Cubs, but an earlier one -- and, from that point onward, a "Chicago game," or just a "Chicago," was one where a team got shut out.

But the White Stockings turned that around in the 1880s, with Anson at 1st base, Kelly catching, and both of them hitting. Indeed, in 1907 and 1908, the Cubs tied a major league record with 32 pitching shutouts in a season. The American League's Chicago White Sox had done it in 1906. All 3 of those teams won the World Series.

The Philadelphia White Stockings folded with the NA after the 1875 season. When the National League began in 1876, the Athletics joined. Borden signed with the Boston Red Stockings, and, on April 22, 1876, he pitched and won the 1st game in NL history, as the Red Stockings beat the Athletics, 6-5 at the Jefferson Street Grounds.

On May 23, the Red Stockings beat the Cincinnati Reds, 8-0. Borden was listed as allowing 2 hits. However, the scorecard shows that he allowed 2 walks, but no hits. The official scorekeeper, Cincinnati Enquirer writer O.P. Caylor, was one of the few writers who believed that walks should be counted as hits. Only in 1 season, 1887, has the NL ever counted them as such.

But the Boston Daily Globe reported that the Reds did get two clean hits, each for one base. If the pitcher's (at least, professional) hometown paper didn't give him the credit for a no-hitter, that would seem to settle it. Officially, the 1st NL no-hitter was by George Bradley of the St. Louis Brown Stockings, against the Hartford Dark Blues, on July 15, 1876.

Borden went 11-12 for the Red Stockings, losing his effectiveness by midseason, and feuding with manager-shortstop George Wright. He was released in August, and never appeared in another major league game.

He later became a shoemaker, a banker, and a successful trainer of hunting dogs. He was mistakenly listed with the dead in the Johnstown Flood in 1889. Instead, he lived until October 14, 1929, dying in the Philadelphia suburb of Yeadon, Pennsylvania, just 8 miles southwest of Shibe Park, where, that day, a more recent version of the Philadelphia Athletics were clinching the World Series over the Cubs.

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July 28, 1875 was a Wednesday. There were 2 other games were played in the National Association that day. The Philadelphia Athletics beat the New York Mutuals, 11-2 at the Union Grounds in Brooklyn. Until 1898, Brooklyn was a separate city, but there would no ballpark on Manhattan Island capable of holding a decent crowd until the original Polo Grounds opened in 1880.

And the New Haven Elm Citys beat the St. Louis Brown Stockings, 7-3 at Hamilton Park in New Haven, Connecticut. Yale University played some of its early football games at Hamilton Park.