The First No-Hitter
As a footnote to “America at Play” (PAW, October 6), your readers might be interested in this excerpt from Ira L. Smith and H. Allen Smith’s excellent book Low and Inside:
“The first no-hit game on record (says our research department) was slung at New Haven, Connecticut, by a young man named Joseph McElroy Mann, pitching for Princeton University against Yale. The date: May 29, 1875.
“Inasmuch as there had been nothing in the nature of a no-hitter up to then, the newspaper took little cognizance of the Mann performance-please remember that the man who ate that first oyster didn’t get his name in the papers. A complete report of that New Haven game, as it appeared in the New York Mercury, occupied one paragraph, which follows:
“ ‘The game between the Princeton and Yale clubs in New Haven yesterday was one of the finest of the season. Mr. Mann’s pitching for the Princeton nine was so effective that the Vales did not make a single base hit. The Princetons won by a score of 8 to 0. Woods and Duffield of the Princetons particularly distinguished themselves, the latter taking several beautiful flies after hard runs.’ ”
A. GILMORE FLUES ’26
Washington, D.C.