Searching for missing Minors no-hitters

Dating back to the 1880 season, there have been more than 4,200 no-hit games pitched in the Minor Leagues. Or, to put it more accurately, there have been more than 4,200 no hit-games that we know about.

Chuck McGill is on a quest to find them all.

For the past six years, McGill, a Vermont resident who works for the National Weather Service, has been on an Internet-based hunt for previously undocumented no-hitters. It's an often tedious but occasionally thrilling task, and his hard work has paid off. Using a variety of archival newspaper websites, McGill has scoured untold thousands of box scores en route to finding more than 500 Minor League no-hitters that, until his intervention, had been lost to the annals of time. These newly discovered no-nos are added to his publicly shared "Minor League No Hitters" Google spreadsheet, which includes copious information on thousands of such ballgames.

Some of his McGill's favorite findings include a 1908 game in the Three-I League in which both pitchers threw no-hitters, as well as a similar occurrence in a 1910 Northern State of Indiana League game. He also found three undocumented no-hitters authored by turn-of-the-20^th Century southpaw Harry Kane, which brought Kane's career total to five (tying him with fellow Deadball Era hurler Walter Justis for the most in Minor League history).

From a baseball history standpoint, this is clearly a worthwhile pursuit. But how does one become involved in such an off-the-beaten-path endeavor?

"I was looking for something to focus on, some sort of research project," McGill said. "I had rejoined SABR [the Society for American Baseball Research] in 2010 and was trying to figure out something to do that hadn't been done before. The Major Leagues have been covered in any way you can cover them, there's not a whole lot there."

McGill's "eureka" moment came when he was doing research on Fred Lynn, one of his all-time favorite players.

"I was looking at a Sporting News article about [Lynn], and on the same page there was a story about one of his Pawtucket teammates who had thrown a no-hitter," McGill said. "It got me thinking, 'There must be a lot of [no-hitters].' There have been so many teams and leagues. I wonder how many there had been."

McGill began compiling a list of Minor League no-hitters, with information culled from league-specific web pages as well as the The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball. He then began scouring the online archives of Sporting Life and the Sporting News, efforts that were supplemented by local newspaper articles obtained via Google News and a subscription to newspapers.com.

"That gave me a bunch more leagues and towns to check, so that was successful," he said. "One day, I found 18 games, mostly in the Kansas State League but also the Northern State of Indiana League. Just within those two leagues, using newspapers.com. That was by far the best day I had; they were coming at me left and right.

"A lot of the research I've done, I've looked at the box scores and found nothing. But then I'll come across a new [no-hitter] and it spurs me on a little more. You go through those dry streaks and then find a new game, where you break that streak. ... I find lots of one-hitters, and I hate finding those. You get so close. Every time I find one of those, I get so mad, thinking about what could've been."

The majority of the no-hitters McGill has found occurred during the Deadball Era, roughly encompassing the years 1901-20.

"Baseball was at its height then, in terms of the numbers of leagues and teams," he said. "And, of course, it was the Deadball Era. That's where you make your money on this kind of research."

McGill doesn't actually make money on his no-hitter project, of course. It's simply the thrill of the hunt that keeps him going, a hunt that can continue as long as websites keep digitizing local newspapers that he had not previously had a chance to explore.

"For the most part, most of the local newspapers would do a little write-up [of the game]. But some didn't mention in the blurb that it was a no-hitter," he said. "So, if you don't look at the box score itself, you would miss it.

"You've definitely got to look at that hits column."