Strange But True: Strikeout Artist

Ron Necciai (NETCH-eye) was 19 years old when he reported to Bristol of the Class D Appalachian Baseball league. He was a right-handed pitcher just out of high school. On May 13, 1952, he faced the Welch, West Virginia, team in a regular league game.

Necciai struck out the first four men he faced. Then a batter sent a routine grounder to a shortstop and was thrown out. Necciai struck out the following batter.

Then Necciai began to strike out the batters as fast as they stepped up to the plate. One batter walked and another was hit by one of Necciai’s pitches, but everybody else returned forlornly to the bench.

In the top of the ninth Necciai fanned the first two batters. Now he had 25 strikeouts. Necciai got three strikes on the next batter, but his catcher, Harry Dunlop, dropped the third strike and the batter scampered to first. According to baseball rules, in such situations the catcher is given an error and the pitcher is credited with a strikeout. Necciai refused to be ruffled. He struck out the next batter to finish the game.

Not only did Ron Necciai pitch a no-hitter, but he struck out 27 batters! Only one batter, in the second inning, managed to hit the ball fairly and he was thrown out.

Necciai continued his amazing pitching in the next two games. He struck out 20, then 19 batters. The Bristol team was the property of the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National League. It was a big jump from Class D to the major leagues but the Pirates decided to see what Necciai could do.

Necciai was not very effective. He did strike out 31 batters, but won only one of seven decisions. He suffered a sore arm and ulcers and went back to the minors for a short time. Then he left baseball for good.

From The Giant Book of More Strange But True Sports Stories by Howard Liss. Illustrations by Joe Mathieu.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Necciai

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2 Comments

  1. Turns out that Necciai had ulcers even when he started in the minors, so it wasn’t the change to the majors that did it (plus we now know that ulcers are actually the result of a bacterial infection, not stress). 
     
    Even though it was Class D, it is still considered pro ball, so Necciai is the only professional player to have ever struck out 27 batters in a 9-inning game.

  2. Pirates gotta Pirate back then too.  Lots of young guys (6th youngest in the majors of all time) ruined before they had a chance to mature by jumping them to the bigs.  His minor stats are incomplete as they claim he only had 109Ks in 169 innings. 
    David Clyde was another one kid ruined by the stupidity of sports management.
    Roy  Halladay is probably one of the few to dig back from the hole of oblivion and march right to the HoF.  Still, though.  Life ended in tragedy by flying recklessly (probably under the influence of the many drugs he had in his system.)
     

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