Night Owl made a nice post a few days ago about no-hitters and the lack of recognition of Dodger no-hitters on cards. Well, my blog is all about lack of recognition. I try to recognize everyone who put on a MLB uniform by giving them a card (well, at least from the 1983-2001 Topps sets), and when I got to thinking about it, Topps has done a poor job at recognizing no-hitters during that period as well. There are a few highlight cards during that period (1984 had some, and Topps started making them in every set again for a while starting with the 1997 set), but many of the no-hitters in that period were missed. The 1990 season had about 12 by itself, let alone all of the random ones from 1984 through 1995. I have made a good number of highlight cards, so I thought I would show off the ones I have made so far celebrating no-hitters and perfect games.
Here we go, starting with the 1989 set. I know I said that the '85-'88 sets are missing cards, but I am kind of on a time crunch today and didn't have time to make cards from those sets, but I may update the post at a later time. Here is what may be the last no-hitter against the future world champs. Tom Browning pitched a perfect game against the future world champion Los Angeles Dodgers on September 16, 1988. He got a card in the '89 Fleer, Score, and a few other sets, but no '89 Topps card.
1991 had a good number of no-no's as well, and I completed the 1992 Topps set, and also made backs for it, so here you go. I have Bret Saberhagen's no-no, Denny Martinez's perfect game, Wilson Alvarez's no-hitter, combined no-hitters by the Baltimore Orioles and Atlanta Braves, and Nolan Ryan's 7th and final career no-hitter.
Here we go, starting with the 1989 set. I know I said that the '85-'88 sets are missing cards, but I am kind of on a time crunch today and didn't have time to make cards from those sets, but I may update the post at a later time. Here is what may be the last no-hitter against the future world champs. Tom Browning pitched a perfect game against the future world champion Los Angeles Dodgers on September 16, 1988. He got a card in the '89 Fleer, Score, and a few other sets, but no '89 Topps card.
There were a good number of no-hitters in 1990, and I made cards for many of them in the 1991 Topps set. Among them are the combined one that Mark Langston and Mike Witt pitched, Randy Johnson's one against the Tigers, Dave Stewart's, Fernando Valenzuela's, Terry Mulholland's, and Dave Stieb's. On all except for the Langston/Witt and Stewart ones, other people provided the photos I believe, and I think they were all from the original games, so I apologize for the blurriness.
1992 only had 1 no-hitter, the one pitched by Kevin Gross. Here is his 1993 Topps highlight card.
1993 had no-hitters thrown by Chris Bosio, Jim Abbott, and Darryl Kile. I used the 1994 Topps preview design for these, and like how they turned out, making them a little different than a normal 1994 Topps card.
For the 1994 season/1995 Topps set, I have done Kenny Rogers' perfect game, Kent Mercker's no-hitter, and Scott Erickson's no-hitter.
I probably wouldn't have known about Ramon Martinez's no-hitter in 1995 had it not been mentioned on the back of 1 or 2 of his cards, and had Night Owl not made his post the other day. I believe there is only 1 card mentioning it in the 1996 sets for some reason. Here is his 1996 Topps card for the no-hitter.
And that about wraps it up. Topps did a better job catching all of the no-hitters and putting them on cards from the 1997 through about the 2010 decade. I hope you have enjoyed all of these missing no-hitter cards. Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy
