Not-so-magic Royals moments, 5-15-73: KC Ryan's first no-no victim

Nolan Ryan threw the first of his record seven no-hitters May 15, 1973, leading the California Angels past the Kansas City Royals 3-0 at Royals Stadium. Ryan struck out 12 batters and walked three.

By Phil Ellenbecker
  Any given night arrived May 15, 1973, for the Kansas City Royals and Nolan Ryan.
  Ryan, who proved himself capable of throwing a no-hitter in almost any game he took the pitching mound in his record 27 years in the major leagues, notched his first career no-no that Tuesday night at brand-new Royals Stadium, leading the California Angels to a 3-0 victory before a crowd of 12,205.
  As it turned out, Ryan, who improved his record to 5-3, was just getting started, despite taking some time to get there. This was his sixth full year in the big leagues. He would go on to throw six more no-hitters, putting some distance between him and previous record holder Sandy Koufax's four.
  “I’m not record-conscious and I don’t have any special career goals,” Ryan told Fred Down of United Press Internatonal when asked that night how many no-hitters he would throw. “I must take the wins and losses as they come.”      
  Ryan took on a little more than he was able to the previous July 31 in Anaheim, California, against the Royals. That night he had a no-hitter through seven innings before Steve Hovley broke it up with a leadoff single in the eighth. The Royals won the game 1-0 on Amos Otis' fourth-inning steal of home, set up when Ryan threw wildly trying to pick off Otis at first base, allowing him to reach third.
  This night Hovley broke up a perfect game, you could say, when he drew a walk as the second man up to bat in the top of the first. Hovley then stole second. But Ryan, who'd struck out Fred Patek to open the game, fanned Amos Otis and John Mayberry to erase that threat. The only K.C. batters to reach base from then on were Carl Taylor in the third and Paul Schaal in the eighth, each with walks. And both stayed at first base.  
  Ryan struck out 12 batters, which was pretty much a day at the office for him in a season in which, with 383 Ks, he broke by one the previous record of -- guess who? -- Koufax in 1965. It was Ryan's fourth double-figure strikeout game of the season. He had 23 double-digit strikeout games in his 39 starts in 1973, with a high of 17.  
  Every batter but Cookie Rojas in the Royals lineup struck out at least once, led by Mayberry with three. Patek and Schaal each fanned twice. Ryan recorded a strikeout in every inning.  
  When the Royals, who would finish second in the American League in runs scored in 1973, weren't striking out, they were frequently getting under Ryan's offerings. Eight outs were recorded on fly balls, two on pops.  
  Getting under, and not getting around. Six of the fly outs came from right-handed batters to the right fielder -- three putouts each by former Royal Bob Oliver and Ken Berry. Berry, a two-time Gold Glove winner who was born in Kansas City, Mo., was inserted for defensive purposes in the seventh inning.  
  Meanwhile, Pinson didn't have a chance in left, while Al Gallagher at third and Rudy Meoli at shortstop had one assist apiece.  
  Meoli saved the no-hitter with two outs in the eighth when he made an over-the-shoulder catch on a blooper by Gail Hopkins that appeared headed to drop between Pinson and center fielder Bobby Valentine. The left-handed hitting Hopkins was batting for Taylor and made an opposite-field bid for a base hit.   
  “Sandy Alomar (second baseman) told me to back up a couple of steps,” Meoli told Don Merry of the (Long Island, Cal.) Independent, according to a Society for American Baseball Research Games Project article. “If I hadn’t, I don’t know whether I would have been able to reach it.”
  After surviving that close shave, Ryan got Patek to pop out foul to first and Hovley to strike out for the first two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Otis then drove a pitch to the warning track in right, where Berry gathered it in to complete the gem.  
  "I felt the pressure building on a no-hitter,” Ryan said to Merry. “I didn’t really feel it tonight until the ninth inning, and then I was nervous."
  As for winning the game, the Angels eased some nerves by scoring all the runs Ryan needed in the first inning.

Bob Oliver, a former Kansas City Royal, went 2-for-4 with two RBIs, two runs scored and a homer against his former team to support Nolan Ryan's 3-0 no-hitter over the Royals on May 15, 1973.

  Vada Pinson, who would come over to the Royals in 1974 for the final two seasons of a distinguished 18-year career, led off the game with a single off Bruce Dal Canton. He advanced to second on Sandy Alomar's sacrifice and to third on Valentine's fly to right. After Frank Robinson walked, Oliver delivered an RBI single. Gallagher made the score 2-0 with a single that drove in Robinson.  
  Oliver rounded out the scoring with a solo homer in the sixth with one out. He finished the game 2-for-4 with two RBIs and two runs scored.  
  The Angels threatened further in the sixth with singles by Gallagher and Meoli. But Gene Garber relieved Dal Canton, got the final out and finished up with 3 1/3 innings of three-hit, shutout relief.  Dal Canton gave up eight hits and three runs, all earned, while walking one as his record fell to 2-2.  
  Pinson joined Oliver with multiple hits for the Angels, going 2-for-5.  
  Ryan threw 132 pitches, 80 of them strikes, in a game that took 2 hours, 30 minutes to complete. All the Royals could do afterward was rave.  
  “That man can bring it,” Mayberry told Sid Bordman of the Kansas City Times. “[He] throws the ball harder than anyone I ever saw.”
  “(Ryan) has the best stuff in the league," Lou Piniella said. "He throws so hard, and his curve is just about impossible to hit.” 
  Ryan's catcher this night, Jeff Torborg, had his own unique perspective. While with the Los Angeles Dodgers he'd caught Koufax's perfect game in 1965 and a no-hitter by Bill Singer in 1970.
   “Nolan has thrown this hard before,” Torborg told Dick Miller of The Sporting News. “But you get to the point where it is humanly impossible to throw any harder. He was very fast, really great, and his curve was excellent.”  
  Besides his record number of strikeouts, Ryan finished 1973 with a 21-16 record and 2.87 ERA. He was in his second season with the Angels after being traded from the New York Mets, for whom he'd gone 29-38 as he battled control problems.   
  “(The Angels) let me do the thing I wanted to do most,” Ryan told UPI. “They let me pitch.”    It took exactly two months for Ryan to pitch another no-hitter in 1973, on July 15 at Detroit. That was the night he struck out 17 and also the night the Tigers' Norm Cash infamously walked up to the plate with two out in the ninth with a table leg, regular bats having proved futile against the Ryan Express.  
  Ryan threw another no-hitter in 1974 in his final start of the season. When he tossed another on June 1, 1975, he had four no-hitters in a span of 84 starts.  
  Before breaking through with a no-hitter in 1973, Ryan had previously thrown complete-game one-hitters April 18, 1970 with the Mets in his first start of the year with 15 strikeouts, and July 9, 1972. (Ryan had also allowed one hit against the Royals in that July 31 game the year before, when he'd no-hit them through seven innings, but he was relieved after the eighth inning.)

Sources:

Play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1973/B05150KCA1973.htm  and  https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/may-15-1973-just-matter-time-nolan-ryans-first-no-hitter
Single-season strikeout leaders: https://www.baseball-almanac.com/pitching/pistrik3.shtml
Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project and Games Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.