“I should have had my no-hitter,” says Steve Arlin. “It was stupid how I lost my no-hitter.”
On July 18, 1972, Arlin, a part-time dentist who occasionally did emergency work on umpires arriving in San Diego with toothaches, carried a no-hitter through 8 2/3 innings against the Phillies. With a 5-0 lead and one out to go in the top of the ninth, he got two strikes on Philadelphia’s Denny Doyle.
That’s when first-year Padres manager Don Zimmer thought Doyle, a lefthanded hitting second baseman, was going to bunt. Zimmer signaled from the dugout to have third baseman Dave Roberts move up about eight feet on the grass.
Doyle, connecting on an inside slider, hit a ball that bounced over Roberts’ head—a ball that he would have been able to field had he been playing in his normal position. Padres shortstop Enzo Hernandez couldn’t make the play.
Arlin gave up a hit to the next batter, too, before closing out the 5-1 win. To this day, he’s still ticked about it.
“It was a case of Zimmer over-managing,’’ Arlin says. “Zimmer wasn’t the sharpest nail in the toolbox. He was growing into the job, but we knew he (Doyle) wasn’t going to bunt with two strikes. And he never bunted in his life.
“Roberts knew he shouldn’t have been playing in. He took a couple of steps back, but Zimmer waved him in again. If Roberts were back in his regular position, it would have been an easy play. I wasn’t happy. Everything was working.’‘
After the game, Zimmer knew that he’d made a mistake so came up to Arlin and handed him a razor blade, and “told me to go ahead and use it on him.’‘
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1. Joe Bivens, Minor Genius Posted: June 13, 2012 at 08:17 PM (#4156117)I think it might have gotten him drilled the next 30 or 40 times he came to bat against SD.
But yeah, Zimmer. My favorite Zimmer story (and I'm not sure where I read this anymore) was from the 1989 NLCS, where fans sitting behind the Cubs' dugout said they wished they had a strong enough magnet to latch onto Zimmer's head plate and pull him out of the dugout to change pitchers.
By the way, Arlin also threw a one-hitter against the Giants that summer, and pitched ten innings of one-hit ball against the Mets, but got no decision.
Date Tm Opp Rslt 6/8/2012 SEA LAD W 1-0 6/1/2012 NYM STL W 8-0 5/2/2012 LAA MIN W 9-0 4/21/2012 CHW SEA W 4-0 5/7/2011 DET TOR W 9-0 5/3/2011 MIN CHW W 1-0 7/26/2010 TBR DET W 5-0 6/25/2010 ARI TBR W 1-0 5/29/2010 PHI FLA W 1-0 5/9/2010 OAK TBR W 4-0 4/17/2010 COL ATL W 4-0 7/10/2009 SFG SDP W 8-0 9/14/2008 CHC HOU W 5-0 5/19/2008 BOS KCR W 7-0 9/6/2006 FLA ARI W 2-0 6/11/2003 HOU NYY W 8-0 9/3/2001 STL SDP W 4-0 7/18/1999 NYY MON W 6-0 7/12/1997 PIT HOU W 3-0 9/17/1996 LAD COL W 9-0 7/28/1994 TEX CAL W 4-0 4/8/1994 ATL LAD W 6-0 8/26/1991 KCR CHW W 7-0 7/28/1991 MON LAD W 2-0 7/13/1991 BAL OAK W 2-0 9/2/1990 TOR CLE W 3-0 9/16/1988 CIN LAD W 1-0 4/15/1987 MIL BAL W 7-0 5/15/1981 CLE TOR W 3-0Source: B-R PI
Edit: All between ages 25-31, interestingly.
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