OK, so Philadelphia Phillies fans can continue to spend the year gloating about their World Championship, but there’s one dubious record they can’t yet hide from.
Although the Mets have been void of a no-hitter since starting play in 1962 (our count is at 7,501 games) the Phillies hold the record for the longest no-hitter drought in Major League Baseball history. The Phils’ streak lasted 58 years, 1 month and 18 days between 1906 and 1964, and using Retrosheet we finally got around to calculating where their game count stopped – 8,945 games.
The streak began on May 3, 1906, one game after Phillies’ southpaw Johnny Lush threw a 6-0 no-hitter against the Brooklyn Superbas. It ended on June 21, 1964, when Jim Bunning threw a 6-0 perfect game against the Mets during a Father’s Day doubleheader at Shea (a game seen in person by my dad).
That gives the Mets 1,444 more chances – or nearly nine seasons – to avoid setting a new Major League record for no no-hitters. Will we still be doing this in 2018? I guess we’ll see.
One other site note: we’ve added a permanent NoNoHitters.com count milestones page with details about some of Mets games in which the NoNoHitters.com count hit prominent milestones.
Information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at www.retrosheet.org.
