Say It Ain't No! Yankees Lose Despite Andy Hawkins' No-Hitter

Today I’m taking you back to the day in 1990 when the Yankees sunk to a new low in one of their worst seasons in team history as Andy Hawkins threw what was originally decreed as a no-hitter yet was the losing pitcher in a 4-0 defeat. And today, I debut Maiorana’s Mailbag where I answer your questions. I included three today, and will get to the others I received in tomorrow’s edition. Let’s get to it.

CHICAGO (July 1, 1990) - Andy Hawkins was a rather nondescript pitcher who lasted 10 years in the major leagues, and that characterization of his career can be defended by the fact that his greatest claim to fame is that he once owned a piece of ignominious MLB history.

Despite not allowing a hit to the White Sox, Hawkins and the Yankees dropped a 4-0 decision at Comiskey Park, the most lopsided defeat ever for a pitcher who had not given up a hit. It was a result that was wholly appropriate for the 1990 Yankees whose .414 winning percentage that season (67-95) still ranks as the fourth-worst in franchise history, with the only three below it all occurring from 1913 and back.

“This lets an awful lot of folks know that they were dead wrong about Andy Hawkins,” Hawkins said after this famous game, proud of his achievement despite the final result. “They can’t take this one away.”

Well, actually, they could, and they did.

Despite the embarrassment that fell upon the Yankees for losing a game in which their pitcher threw a no-hitter, the only positive thing that came from this horrible day - the fact that Hawkins actually threw a no-hitter - was indeed taken away in the fall of 1991.

Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent chaired an eight-man committee tasked with producing “statistical accuracy” across all baseball achievements and records and they changed the criteria for what an official no-hitter would be. Just like that, nearly 50 originally recognized no-hitters were wiped from the books including the one thrown by Hawkins.

The committee took away any no-hitters where the game did not go at least nine full innings, so because the Yankees were the visiting team, Hawkins only threw eight no-hit innings. Nice game, but not good enough. Also vacated were any instances where a pitcher threw nine no-hit innings but then lost it in extra innings, which was probably the right call.

At least Hawkins pitched every inning he could per the rules. It never made sense that a no-hitter was credited just because the pitcher went nine innings; if the game went into extra innings and the pitcher allowed a hit, he should never have qualified for a no-hitter, but hey, that’s just common sense Sal talking.

The most famous incomplete no-hitter was credited to Harvey Haddix of the Pirates in 1959. He had a perfect game through 12 innings but then lost it in the 13th inning when a fielding error and an intentional walk preceded a walk-off home run by Milwaukee’s Joe Adcock. Adcock’s hit was later changed to an RBI double because Adcock passed Hank Aaron between second and third base after the winning run had crossed the plate, so a 3-0 Braves victory became a 1-0 victory. Until the 1991 clarification, Haddix had been credited with a nine-inning no-hitter.

The 1990 season had already gone off the rails for the Yankees by the time the calendar flipped to July. They started 4-1 for manager Bucky Dent, the former Yankee home run hero who had taken over the team late in 1989 when Dallas Green was fired. But then reality set in and with an 18-31 record, Dent was canned and Stump Merrill was named manager.

Not that the change made any difference. The Yankees lost 13 of Merrill’s first 23 games leading to Hawkins’ date with destiny on July 1. Hawkins had gone 15-15 with a 4.80 ERA in 1989, his first season in the Bronx after signing as a free agent following seven decent years in San Diego. But he was off to a terrible start in 1990 with a 6.48 ERA through his first 13 starts and in early June, the Yankees told him he had a choice; either accept a demotion to the minors or they were going to release him.

Hawkins had packed his bags and was ready to become an ex-Yankee, but a day later Mike Witt, who had signed with the Yankees in the offseason, suffered an elbow injury that landed him on the disabled list and saved Hawkins’ roster spot. Going into Chicago, he had pitched well enough in his previous two starts to help the Yankees beat the Blue Jays and Brewers, although he didn’t factor into the decision.

On the day the White Sox were commemorating the 80th anniversary of the opening of Comiskey Park, Hawkins and Chicago starter Greg Hibbard put on quite a show. Both were perfect through 4 ½ innings before Hawkins walked two men in the fifth before retiring Sammy Sosa on a deep fly ball to left that was held in the park by a stiff breeze and ultimately caught by Yankees rookie Jim Leyritz.

The Yankees finally broke through with two singles in the sixth and two more in the seventh, but in each inning those runners were left stranded.

New York had another chance in the eighth when Bob Geren reached on an error and was on second base with one out before Roberto Kelly and Steve Sax failed to deliver. And then in the bottom of the eighth, chaos ensued and the Yankees blew the game.

With two outs, Sosa reached on an error by third baseman Mike Blowers, a play that created some controversy because some believed Sosa should have been credited with a hit. Today, it undoubtedly would have been scored a hit because as we know, it’s almost impossible to make an error in MLB.

Blowers backhanded the ball, bobbled it, then nearly gunned Sosa out but Sosa beat the throw with a head-first slide. The scoreboard operator, not waiting for the official ruling, jumped the gun and put up an H and immediately the Yankees began barking at the press box.

However, the official scorer, Bob Rosenberg, had not made the call and when he did, he ruled it as an error and the scoreboard was changed. “I called it right away,” Rosenberg said. “The Yankees in the dugout were giving me the finger.”

Blowers said, “It should have been an error all the way.” And of that confusion, Hawkins said, “The only difficult thing I had was when they started changing things around on the scoreboard. I went through a psychological see-saw there.”

Once that was settled, the no-hitter was still alive, but soon the game wasn’t. Sosa stole second and Hawkins walked Ozzie Guillen and Lance Johnson to load the bases, but it looked like he was going to get out of the jam when Robin Ventura hit a fly ball to left. Instead, Leyritz got turned around as he battled the wind and butchered the play with the ball caroming off his glove and rolling to the wall. He was charged with a two-base error which cleared the bases.

“Jimmy was upset but he had no reason to be upset,” Hawkins said of Leyritz, a catcher who had started only two MLB games in the outfield. “This is a tough outfield.”

How tough? The next batter, Ivan Calderon, hit a fly ball to right where Jesse Barfield, normally a terrific fielder, also dropped it and Ventura scored the fourth run.

In the Yankee ninth, Steve Balboni reached on a one-out error but Barfield grounded into a game-ending double play, completing one of the most embarrassing losses the Yankees suffered in 1990, or any year.

“When you throw a no-hitter you expect to walk off the field and shake everybody’s hand like I’ve seen a thousand times before, like we’ve seen the last two days (Fernando Valenzuela of the Dodgers and Dave Stewart of the A’s had thrown no-hitters this same weekend),” Hawkins said. “They came off the field in jubilation. They had no-hitters and wins, and that’s the way it should be.”

To this point in baseball history, the only other pitcher to lose a solo no-hitter that did not reach extra innings occurred on April 23, 1964 when Ken Johnson of the Houston Colt .45’s lost 1-0 to the Reds. In 1967, Steve Barber and Stu Miller of the Orioles combined on a no-hitter in a 2-1 loss to the Tigers.

“Somehow, we have to find a way for to celebrate,” said Yankees reliever Dave Righetti, author of the Yankees previous no-hitter in 1983. “Under the circumstances, I don’t think anybody would know how to act.”

Hawkins wound up sticking with the Yankees through the rest of 1990 but then was released in May 1991. He signed with the A’s and at the end of the year he called it quits. During his career, 280 games and 249 starts, he went 84-91 with a 4.22 ERA and a 1.403 WHIP.

As a Yankee, Hawkins appeared in 66 games (63 starts) and was mostly lousy on a lousy team as he went 20-29 with a 5.21 ERA and 1.534 WHIP.

⚾ July 1, 1950: This was the day the Yankees sent Whitey Ford to the mound for his first career appearance. Tommy Byrne got hammered by the Red Sox at Fenway Park, giving up eight earned runs inside two innings, so Casey Stengel figured that was as good a time as any to give Ford his first taste of the big league. He permitted two of Byrne’s runners to score when Bobby Doerr - the first man he faced - ripped a two-run single. From there, Ford wasn’t much better as he gave up five runs on seven hits and six walks in what became a 13-4 loss so his ERA was 9.64 after his first game.

Five days later, Ford made his first start and pitched seven decent innings in 5-4 victory over the A’s, and then on July 17, he earned his first career victory with a 7.2 innings of work in a 4-3 victory over the White Sox. By the end of the year, Ford was 9-1 with a 2.81 ERA, and he was the winning pitcher in Game 4 of the World Series when the Yankees completed their four-game sweep of the Phillies.

⚾ July 2, 1941: Joe DiMaggio hit safely in his 45th consecutive game which gave him sole possession of the longest consecutive game hitting streak in baseball history. DiMaggio hit a three-run homer off Boston’s Dick Newsome of the Red Sox during a six-run uprising in the fifth inning of an 8-4 victory over the Red Sox. DiMaggio broke the record of 44 games by Wee Willie Keeler of the Orioles in 1897. DiMaggio of course would tack on 11 more to get to 56, a record that will most likely never be broken.

Welcome to the first edition of the mailbag. Thanks to everyone who sent in questions, and if I didn’t answer yours today, I’ll get to it tomorrow.

⚾ From Ron Guardino: Loyal reader of yours, brother. Keep it up. So a month ago I was in awe about how great our starting pitching was. June shot me down to earth. With trade deadline coming in a few weeks, what do you think we need more? Starting pitching, bullpen help or a 1B/3B upgrade? I know we need all but what’s priority?

Ron, you nailed it - they need all of it. Sad but true, but Brian Cashman has a team that is tied for first in the AL East yet the roster he built is flawed in all of those areas. I don’t see them trading for a starter, but they have to get some bullpen arms because right now, that group is untenable. Who can Boone truly trust? Clay Holmes, Luke Weaver and I can’t believe I’m saying this, Michael Tonkin. Scott Effross is close to returning, but he hasn’t pitched in nearly two years because of his Tommy John surgery, so we have no idea what he’ll give them in 2024. And then on the corner infield spots, we’re going to find out that JD Davis isn’t the answer, so unless they pick up someone else, they’re going to be stuck with DJ LeMahieu at third and then hope that Ben Rice can lock down first. Speaking of Rice …

⚾ From Steve Falso: I was able to watch Ben Rice play quite a bit in Somerset (AA), and offensively, he’s a stud (as you can see by how comfortable he looks at the plate in the majors). Is he a potential answer for the Yankees at first, with the bonus of being the No. 3 catcher (he’s a little shaky there defensively, but certainly good enough to be No. 3 or even a No. 2 some day). Also, do you think he stays up the rest of the year?

Steve, I saw Rice for a week in Rochester when he went up to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and he looked good both at first base and catcher, plus the kid can hit. You’re right, he does look comfortable at the plate and he seems to have a pretty good plan of attack. He was showing much more power in the minors so he has to prove he can do that against MLB pitching, but it’s very early so I think it’ll come. He smoked a couple balls in Toronto and nearly had his first home run. In the field he’s going to be a work in progress at first, but so far he hasn’t been a liability so that’s a good sign. If he hits and can improve his glove, yes, I definitely think he could be the long-term answer at first once Anthony Rizzo is gone.

⚾ From Richard Jenks: Sal, is it Boone that keeps our team losing close games? I liked him at first but he is wearing thin.

Richard, when they hired Boone before the 2018 season I liked the idea. Joe Girardi had run his course and they needed a fresh look, and I liked Cashman thinking outside the box with Boone who had never managed and was, at the time, a broadcaster for ESPN. He obviously has great genes with a grandfather, father and brother who all played in the big leagues as he did. But I started souring on Boone in the Covid year and now I’m at the point where if they don’t win the World Series, then move on. I’m just so tired of him and his never-ending positivity even when some situations so clearly calls for honest negativity. And his in-game decisions can be so baffling that it drives me nuts. I will say that I actually think he’s been a little better in that area this season, but not enough to make me long for his return if, as I said, they don’t win it all.