The Main Event
- July 22, 1905 – Weldon Henley pitched a no-hitter, beating the St. Louis Browns 6-0 in Game one of a doubleheader — the first no-hitter in Philadelphia Athletics franchise history.
On July 22, 1905, at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, Weldon Henley took the mound for the first game of a doubleheader against the St. Louis Browns and did something no Athletics pitcher had ever done: he threw a no-hitter, winning 6-0 in front of roughly 12,400 fans. It was a modest, almost unlikely moment for Henley personally. He’d struggled that year and would finish the season with a losing record, and he’d had nine days of rest since his last outing, more a product of a struggling rotation slot than any grand plan. None of that mattered once the game started. He carried a clean sheet through all nine innings, and Philadelphia’s brand-new American League franchise had its first no-hitter.
Context matters here. The Athletics were only in their fifth season of existence, having joined the American League in its inaugural 1901 campaign under Connie Mack, who would go on to manage the club for an almost unfathomable half-century. By 1905, the team was already good, in fact very good. That same season, the Athletics won the American League pennant before losing the World Series to the New York Giants in a series remembered for Christy Mathewson‘s three shutouts. Henley’s no-hitter came in the middle of that pennant run, one of four no-hitters thrown across the majors in 1905, sandwiched between Mathewson’s own no-hitter that June and another by Frank Smith of the White Sox that September. So the Athletics’ first no-hitter wasn’t a fluke moment for a bad team looking for a highlight. It happened at the front end of a genuine championship-caliber season, for a franchise that was still defining itself.
The historic weight of the game grows with hindsight. It was the first entry in what became a long, decorated no-hitter tradition for the Athletics franchise as it moved from Philadelphia to Kansas City to Oakland, a lineage that would eventually include some of the most famous arms in baseball history. Henley doesn’t have the name recognition of the pitchers who came after him in that lineage, and his own career was brief and unremarkable outside of this one afternoon. But he holds a specific, permanent distinction: he was first. Every no-hitter the Athletics have thrown since traces its franchise history back to him.
Teams That Have Never Thrown or Never Suffered a No-Hitter
As of today, there is no active MLB franchise that has never had one of its own pitchers throw a no-hitter, and there is no active franchise that has never been no-hit by an opponent. Both categories used to have holdouts, but both were closed out in recent memory, which makes them worth exploring even though the honest answer to “who’s left” is now nobody.
On the “thrown a no-hitter” side, the San Diego Padres were the last franchise standing. Founded in 1969, they went 52 seasons without a single no-hitter from one of their own pitchers, the longest such drought to start a franchise’s existence in modern history, until Joe Musgrove ended it on April 9, 2021, no-hitting the Texas Rangers 3-0 and striking out ten. Musgrove is a San Diego native, which made the moment resonate locally beyond the raw novelty of it. His no-hitter closed the book on the era when any current team lacked one.
On the “been no-hit” side, the more interesting recent case is the Colorado Rockies, not because they held out longest, but because their timeline is a good illustration of how these streaks work. The Rockies entered the league in 1993, and it took only until September 17, 1996, for Hideo Nomo of the Dodgers to no-hit them at Coors Field, a result that stood out at the time given the ballpark’s reputation as a hitter’s paradise. Despite being no-hit early, Colorado’s own pitchers took much longer to return the favor. It wasn’t until April 17, 2010, that Ubaldo Jimenez became the first Rockies pitcher to throw a no-hitter, against the Braves. So the two milestones, being no-hit and throwing one, don’t move together; a franchise can hit one well before the other, and for a long time the Padres and a handful of others were incomplete on one side of the ledger.
The First Phillies No-Hitter
The Phillies’ own history on this front predates the Athletics’ by two decades. Charlie Ferguson, a young pitcher who spent his entire four-year career with Philadelphia, threw the franchise’s first no-hitter on August 29, 1885, beating the Providence Grays 1-0 at Recreation Park, then the Phillies’ home field in Philadelphia. Ferguson was only 22 at the time and was already establishing himself as one of the better all-around players in the league, a genuine two-way threat at the plate as well as on the mound. His career ended tragically just under three years later when he died of typhoid fever less than two weeks after his 25th birthday, finishing with a 99-64 record and a 2.67 ERA. That no-hitter remains the franchise’s first, a distinction that has outlived him by nearly a century and a half.
Philadelphia Baseball History for July 22
- July 22, 1918 – The Phillies managed only one hit in a 1-0 exhibition loss to the Athletics. Proceeds from the game, which was postponed from April, went to the family of late Philadelphia sportswriter/BBWAA secretary William Weart, who died in the 1917-19 flu pandemic.
- July 22, 1925 – Facing the Pirates, George Harper was sent back to the dugout when umpires found nails in his bat. With a new bat, he struck out on three pitches.
- July 22, 1930 – Pitcher Phil Collins – not to be confused with the drummer from the band Genesis – hit home runs in consecutive innings as the Phillies beat Pittsburgh 11-5.
- July 22, 1958 – Eddie Sawyer returned for his second stint as Phillies manager, replacing Mayo Smith (265-283-2).
- July 22, 1964 – Rookie first baseman Danny Cater broke his left arm colliding with Joe Torre at first base in a 4-1 win over Milwaukee.
- July 22, 1966 – Traded Dallas Green to New York (NL) for cash. (transaction)
- July 22, 1966 – Gaylord Perry held the Phillies hitless for seven innings but settled for a two-hitter with 15 strikeouts in a 4-1 Giants win.
- July 22, 1969 – Richard Nixon hosted a White House reception marking baseball’s 100th anniversary; Phillies owners Bob and Ruly Carpenter, GM John Quinn, manager Bob Skinner, and players Grant Jackson and Mike Ryan attended.
Philadelphia Baseball Birthdays for July 22
- Doc Cramer (born 1905) – His first seven MLB seasons were with the Athletics as an outfielder.
- Sparky Lyle (born 1944) – A left-handed reliever best known for his seven seasons with the Yankees, Lyle made 92 relief appearances over three seasons with the Phillies from 1980-1982, posting a 4.37 ERA.
- Mike Sweeney (born 1973) – Purchased from Seattle in August, 2010, Sweeney hit .231 in 26 games as a first baseman for the Phillies. He also was a catcher and outfielder earlier in his career.
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