Evening Star Newspaper, August 17, 1930, Page 76

4 - Pitched the FIRST No-Hit Game Cy Young, stocky little pitcher for the Boston Americans, pitched a perfect gome May 5, 1904. BY JAMES W. BOOTH. game in the Nstlonsl.uque. “That’s right,” Bradley told me recently. “I piched the first no-hit game in the National League.” That first no-hit game was more than just & no-hit game—not a Hartford batter reached first base, While more than a half century has passed since Bradley turned in that perfect game, but five players since then have accom- plished the feat. JORN M., WARD of the old Providence Grays and J. Lee Richmond of the Worcester Nationals turned the trick back in 1880; Cy Young of the Boston Americans came through t game on May 5, 1904; Addie eland Indians did it on October Charlie Robertson of on April 30, 1922, In those early days of the National League were not played every day, as is the cus- . Instead, Tuesday, Thursday and were the playing days. Three games constituted a series. In the series with Hartford in July, 1876, Bradley, to use the slang expression, was “the whole works.” He pitched all three games, shutting out Hartford for 27 innings, thereby accomplishing an “iron man” stunt that has not been equaled in either the Na- tional or American League. Qn July 11 Bradley held Hartford to four hits and no runs. He licked them on July 13, hokding them down to five safe blows and no runs. Then on the 15th he pitched his perfect game. That record has been approached, but never equaled. WALTER JOHNSON of the Washington Senators approached it when he shut out the New York Yankees, September 4, 5 and 7, 1908. Johnson pitched 27 consecutive innings against the same club, but the Yankees got hits in every game. Cy Young, that famous pitcher of yesteryear, pitched 22 consecutive years in the major leagues. He turned in three no-hit games. Forty-five consecutive innings without a run being scored by ts was credited to Young. But he was not facing the same team in all the games and had a fair rest between the five contests. Bradley is now a Philadelphia policeman. He has been a member of the Quaker City foree since he gave up playing base ball, 'way back in the 1880’s. Although too old for active service, he still remains on the force. He is one of the police guards on duty at City Hall, his duties consisting chiefly of keeping ambu- lanee chasers, political hangers-on and similar small fry, the like of which are to be found congregated in the corridors of every city hall, on the move. To loock at Bradley one would never imagine THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. €, AUGUST Y7, 180 George Washington Bradley, sketched from an old photograph to show how he looked when he won his base ball immortality back in the days of Anson, Sunday, Radbourne and Kelly. He pitched three consecutive shutouts, the third game being the first no-hit pitching feat recorded. that he is nearing 75. True, his hair is snow- white, but his eyes are clear and sparkling, his complexion ruddy, his carriage is as straight as an Indian’s, and he walks with the snap of a soldier. When 1 talked with him he would not admit anything remarkable in the fact that he was the first man to pitch a perfect no-hit game. ullp::?:ryhyedmtedondhuhnm Cays was known as the National Associal Base Ball Players, but it was on its last its last year, in fact. “The Boston team was the whole those days. “That Summer William H. Hulbert came on sign contracts to play with Chicago the fol- lowing year. That raised an awful rumpus. The rule of the association was that no player could sign with another team until the end of the current playing season. The National As- sociation threatened to blacklist them. “As a result, Hulbert, with the backing of the “It was a tough proposition in the old days to keep the players from reach of the allure- go to pieces. “I started pitching up there in Easton and when Hulbert organized the National League Bradley doesn’t look anything like his 74 years. He is still on active duty with the Philadelphia police, as a guard at City Hall. I had an offer to pitch for St. Louis and accepted. “I remember distinctly one of the first games I pitched out there. It was against Boston and I won it. It gave me a good bit of a thsill, for Boston had won 25 straight games and had just come from Chicago after cleaning up the series with Spalding’s team.” Base ball records show that in this game against Boston Bradley allowed but one hit, The score was 5-0. BRADL!Y played with St, Louis for two years, Of the game which brought him his fame—the no-hit game—he had little to say. “In 1877,” he declared, turning the conversa- tion away from the no-hit game, “I went teo Chicago. We won the championship that year, Spalding and I carried most of the pitching burden, and if I do say it myself we did a darn good job of it, too. “Speaking of Spalding, there was a fine man. There was never a finer one. And how he loved base ball! It was his religion. But above all things he wanted it or the square. He didn’'t want crookedness or gambling aie tached to it, and it was largely through his efforts that the game is what it is tod:iy.” Bradley paused a moment or two, and them asked me, “Can you imagine a base ball player too proud to receive a salary?” “Well,” he asserted, continuing before I had an opportunity to reply, “when Spalding first began playing the game he was. I remember him telling me how it embarrassed him to re- ceive $40 a week for pitching. That was before I started in the game. He had been pitching smack-up ball for the Forest City club of Rockford, Ill., in 1866, and fans used to come over from Chicago in droves. “Spalding was then a grocer’s clerk, and every time he stayed away from his job to play ball his salary was docked. Then one day a man came over from Chicago and offered Spalding a position at $40 a week with all the time off he wanted to play base ball. This was beating around the bush, of course, but it was the recognized way. “Had he openly taken the money as a ball player he would have been regarded as a de=- spised professional. And at that stage of the game’s history professionalism was a charge like murder. “Pop Anson captained the Chicago team I played on. ¢ ANBON was just beginning to attract ate attention, a ball player if there ever was one. Of course, he had won a lot of fame for himself while playing with Rockford, the same team that Spalding started with, but it wasn's until with Chicago that he reached the heighta, “Besides being a great captain, he was one of the most scientific hitters that ever played base ball. He had brains in his bat. * “Anson’s immortality in base ball, however, rests on the work he did with the Chicago team of 1882, five years after I left the club. It was then that he practically instituted inside base ball, or team plays. Infield and outfield, with Anson, became a paris of the science of base ball. Through him modern batting came. “Beginning with Anson and his team, one can follow the development of team play through the St. Louis Browns under Charley Continued on Twenty-first Page