August 30, 1941: Lon Warneke No-Hits The Reds In Cincy

On August 30, 1941, Lon Warneke pitched the fourth no-hitter in the history of the St. Louis Cardinals organization as the team beat the Reds 2-0 in Cincinnati. The Cardinals hurler allowed just one walk, while two errors accounted for two more baserunners. Not one of the those men reached second. The first man to reach was in the fifth inning when the Reds first baseman Frank McCormick hit a hotshot up the middle that second baseman Creepy Crespi mishandled and threw high and wide of first, bringing Johnny Mize off the bag. McCormick was erased just one batter later, Jim Gleeson was a strikeout victim, then Walker Cooper gunned down McCormick as he attempted to steal second, nothin like a good ole strike'em out, throw'em out double play to keep a no-no alive. Gleeson opened up the seventh with a popup over the Jimmy Brown's head, the Cardinals third baseman stumbled and fell as he attempted to retrieve it for the second Redbird error of the game. The next man up was Reds catcher Ernie Lombardi, he hit the ball straight to Crespi who turned a tailor made double play to erase both him and Gleeson. Following the double play Warneke issued a walk to Lonnie Frey, it was his only walk of the contest. The biggest scare for Warneke came after the walk when Frank McCormick hit a high fly ball that was hauled in at the left field wall by Don Padgett. It was a pitching performance that the Cardinals needed as the pitcher for the Reds, Elmer Riddle tossed a gem of his own. Riddle allowed just 5 hits with one of those hits coming off the Cardinals pitcher. While Riddle was the loser in the contest, he was not charged with an earned run as defensive miscues led to both Cardinals runs in the seventh inning. When the ninth inning rolled around and Warneke had the no-hitter intact, the crowd of nearly 10,000 began to cheer for the Cardinals pitcher in hopes that he would complete the bid. The cheers got louder after he got Lloyd Waner to popup to Marty Marion at short to record the first out, Ernie Koy followed it up with a ground ball to Marion who threw him out at first. Just one hour and forty nine minutes after Warneke had threw his first pitch, he got Bill Werber to hit a popup to Mize at first that put the no-no in the books.

Here's the box score: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CIN/CIN194108300.shtml