It is one of the rarest and most exciting phenomena in the world of professional baseball — the no-hitter.
From the time of the sport’s inception in 1869, there have only been 326 no-no’s, with the most recent coming in a combined effort between Shota Imanaga, Nate Pearson, and Porter Hodge on Sept. 4, 2024.
The Chicago Cubs defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates by a score of 12-0 that day. It was the first combined no-hitter thrown by the Cubs at home in 52 seasons.
There were only four no-hitters thrown in all of the 2024 season out of 2,430 regular season games.
Aledo resident Kevin Hurd has a fascination with no-hitters that he turned into a two-volume Amazon best seller, and it all started when he retired from the Air Force after 20 years of service in 2014.
“In June of 2014, both Tim Lincecum (San Francisco Giants) and Clayton Kershaw (Los Angeles Dodgers) threw no-hitters,” Hurd said. “After Kershaw’s no-hitter, I read an article, I believe it was from ESPN.com, about how long-time Dodgers announcer Vin Scully has called 21 no-hitters, which was about nine percent of all no-hitters (231) from 1901 to Kershaw’s game. The article also had a link to all no-hit games from 1875-present. I became very interested in no-hitters.”
But Hurd, 68, did not actually start working on the book until six years later because he took a job in security at the Western Currency Facility (WCF) in Fort Worth and worked there until March 2020.
“In early March 2020, I went to Arizona where we (two brothers, sister-in-law, and friend) went to watch the Giants play several spring training games,” Hurd said. “While there, I got back in touch with my friend (Rob Adams) and told him about my interest in no-hitters. He suggested I write a book about it.
“Due to COVID, I retired from the WCF at the end of the month and concentrated on writing the book.”
A baseball fan from childhood, Hurd played little league ball from 1965-69 and grew up as a San Francisco Giants fan.
“I was very happy from 2010-2014 when the Giants won three World Series,” Hurd said. “I liked the 2010 series win the most since it was the Giants first World Series win while in San Francisco.”
Hurd’s books, From Randy Johnson to Dallas Braden: No-hitters Beyond the Box Score Vol. 1 and 2 required extensive research and eventually became a project on which he and his brother collaborated.
“Usually I worked four hours a day; sometimes more, sometimes less,” Hurd said. “In September 2021 I got my brother Bruce involved with editing and he was a big help.
“When I was working with two other friends, I wound up writing about 49 games. With Bruce’s help, it got paired down to 23 games. I did most of the interviews (15 out of 20). Bruce handled the publishing part. He is also a self-published author. I wound up having a book launch on Sept. 29, 2024.”
Hurd and his family have lived in Aledo since 2001.
He grew up in California in the Bay Area in the city of Los Altos, which is a suburb of San Jose.
The area he grew up in has been known as Silicon Valley since the 1960s, and he actually went to high school with Steve Jobs.
Hurd graduated from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, graduating with a degree in Business Administration.
He joined the Air Force in 1984, flying as a Navigator on RC-135s and KC-135s, and his last 12 years were as a staff officer (retired as a lieutenant colonel) at 10th AF at Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base.
Hurd said in writing the book, he was struck by a few things.
“First, I remember reading an article by Los Angeles Times/Hall of Fame Baseball writer Jim Murray,” Hurd said. “In the article, he wrote that ‘anybody could throw a no-hitter and that the vast majority of no-hit pitchers were ‘non-entities.’
“The first part was true — there are a vast array of pitchers who have thrown no-hitters. There are Hall of Fame pitchers who have not thrown no-hitters and pitchers with a win-loss record of 3-7 who have thrown a no-hitter. The part about non-entities was wrong though.”
Hurd said that of all the no-hitters, more than 60 percent were thrown by pitchers who had an average career win-loss record of 130-115 or better, hardly non-entities.
“There is some luck involved, but usually no-hitters are thrown by better than average pitchers,” Hurd said. “Secondly, many of the journeyman pitchers (average W-L of 46-48) had less than average records because of injuries, not because they were bums that got lucky.
“Third, many of the catchers I interviewed became catchers one, in little league because nobody else would do it, or, two, played different positions until they were in the minors and they switched to catcher because that was the best chance they had to get into the big leagues.”
Hurd said he would like to go onto some baseball podcasts to discuss his books and might write more in the future.
As for his books, the Aledo man said he hopes that readers understand, among other things, how special no-hitters actually are and that not every pitcher that threw one is considered elite.
“What I hope they take away from the book is that baseball is unique among the major team sports (baseball, football, basketball, and hockey) in that a journeyman can really have his day in the sun,” Hurd said. “I have several tables where I list no-hit games. I refer to them as ‘David vs. Goliath,’ games, where a journeyman pitcher on an average team throws a no-hitter against a much better team. That doesn’t happen a whole lot in other team sports, depending on what you consider an equivalent event, such as a quarterback throwing five TD passes, NBA players who score 50 points in a game, or an NHL player scoring four goals or more in a game, to a no-hitter. It’s one of the things I love about baseball.”
From Randy Johnson to Dallas Braden: No-hitters Beyond the Box Score Vol. 1 and 2 are available on Amazon, independent bookstores and chain bookstores like Barnes & Noble.
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