Posted By:
Dr.Koos...Steve Dalkowski's (Baltimore Orioles minor league pitcher in the early 60s under Earl Weaver) no hitter!
Steve was timed at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, the same place that Feller recorded a 98.6 MPH pitch. Interestingly, this device, unlike a Radar gun which times the ball, usually in either mid-flight or out of the pitcher's hand, measured TERMINAL velocity. In order to be timed, a person had to throw the ball into a chute from a pitching distance and the device would read the terminal MPH of the thrown object. It took Dalkowski over 50 pitches to throw the ball into the chute! The reading was an impossible 120 MPH!! Eddie Feiner, the fast pitch softball wizard ("King and his Court"), who most major leaguers thought was a sterling accomplishment just to FOUL OFF one of his pitches in Charity Exhibition games, was timed at 104 MPH on this same device. Anyway, Dalkowski LOST a 9 inning no hitter by the score of 10-9, striking out 25, walking 19, and serving up his usual quota of wild pitches, some throw into the stands halfway between third base and home plate! He has one baseball card, a 1963 Topps rookie card (showing the standard 4 players). The minor league stats are INCREDIBLE, showing a huge losing W/L record in somewhere between 700 to 900 innings pitched with approx. 1100 strikeouts and 1100 walks!!
My vote for the second most incredible pitching performance is my pitching the 1952T Pro Mantle auctions on Ebay in an unfriendly climate of overwhelming adversity!!! 