Unassisted triple plays The rarest type of triple play, and one of the rarest events of any kind in baseball, is for a single fielder to complete all three outs in one play. There have only been 15
To Recap. The rarest feat in baseball is an unassisted triple play, which has been accomplished only 19 times throughout the history of the game. Another rare feat is a perfect game, which has been achieved just once.
On May 13, 1952 while pitching for the Class-D Bristol Twins, Ron Necciai tossed a no-hitter, striking out 27 in nine innings!
In an average season, there are a roughly equal number of no hitters and triple plays. Figure on 2–3 of each every season. Unassisted triple Plays are far more rare. Years, even decades can go by without it happening.
Incredibly, the game was scoreless until the bottom of the 24th, the longest any Major League game has ever stayed scoreless. The six-hour, six-minute contest at the Astrodome began with Hall of Famer Tom Seaver on the mound for the Mets and Don Wilson for the Astros. Both starters were at the top of their game.
On April 17, 2010, it took 20 innings and nearly seven hours in a game that was scoreless through 18. Both sides went a combined 1-for-25 with runners in scoring position. When the Mets finally crossed home plate in both the 19th and 20th innings, it was against Joe Mather, a position player pressed into pitching.
Baseball is sometimes called the timeless game. Unlike football, basketball or soccer, there's no clock. The teams keep playing until there's a winner. Theoretically, the game could go on and on forever.
On April 23, 1964, Ken Johnson of the Houston Colt . 45s became the first pitcher to throw a nine-inning no-hitter and lose. In fact, he is still the only individual to throw an official (nine-inning) no-hitter and lose.
An immaculate inning occurs in baseball when a pitcher strikes out all three batters he faces in one inning using the minimum possible number of pitches: nine. This has happened 114 times in Major League history and has been accomplished by 104 pitchers (79 right-handed and 25 left-handed).
The perfect game — 27 up, 27 down — is the rarest of baseball feats. There have been only 23 of them in major league history, with the first two coming in 1880.
It's a pretty rare feat. But ... have you ever seen a two-pitch inning? As in, a pitcher only needs two pitches to record a clean inning of work? If you watched the Rome Braves' win over the West Virginia Power on Friday night, you did.
Nebraska—wearing uniform number 18, Don Larsen's number—strikes out all 27 batters on three pitches each, making it an 81-pitch "super-perfect" game. In For Love of the Game (Universal Pictures, 1999), hero Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner) pitches a perfect game at Yankee Stadium.
During baseball's modern era, 21 pitchers have thrown perfect games. Most were accomplished major leaguers. Seven have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame: Cy Young, Addie Joss, Jim Bunning, Sandy Koufax, Catfish Hunter, Randy Johnson, and Roy Halladay.
Unassisted triple plays
The rarest type of triple play, and one of the rarest events of any kind in baseball, is for a single fielder to complete all three outs in one play. There have only been 15 unassisted triple plays in MLB history, making this feat rarer than a perfect game.
The two hottest games in league history took place in the Lone Star State. The Texas Rangers were the home team in the only two MLB contests to be played in 109-degree heat. The first game was against the Minnesota Twins on June 27, 1980, at Arlington Stadium.
This is because it requires a ball to be hit solidly to a distant part of the field (ordinarily a line drive or fly ball near the foul line closest to right field), or the ball to take an irregular bounce in the outfield, usually against the wall, away from a fielder.
A no-hitter is a rare accomplishment for a pitcher or pitching staff—only 318 have been thrown in MLB history since 1876, an average of about two per year.
One such rarity is the immaculate inning. You've probably heard of it -- an immaculate inning is when a pitcher strikes out all three batters in an inning, on three pitches each. The immaculate inning used to be very rare -- there were none from 1929-52.
Immaculate innings: 3 strikeouts on 9 pitches.
Other fun no-hitter facts
The youngest pitcher to throw no-hitter: Amos Rusie, New York Giants, July 31, 1891 (20 years, 62 days).
May 1, 1991: 44 year-old Nolan Ryan throws his 7th career no hitter, blanking the Blue Jays 3-0, becoming the oldest player in MLB history ever to throw a no-hitter.
Reds pitcher Johnny Vander Meer famously became the only man to pitch back-to-back no-hitters in June 1938, but even he fell shy of Young, ultimately settling at 21 hitless innings for the NL record.
It is the custom at major league baseball games that fans can keep all baseballs which are hit or thrown out of play into the spectator seating area. Not surprisingly, many fans treasure souvenir baseballs obtained in this manner.
In baseball, an official game (regulation game in the Major League Baseball rulebook) is a game where nine innings have been played, except when the game is scheduled with fewer innings, extra innings are required to determine a winner, or the game must be stopped before nine innings have been played, e.g. due to ...
A triple-header (tripleheader) occurs when the same two teams play three consecutive games against each other on the same date. There have been three tripleheaders in Major League Baseball history.