PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) \u2013 The last Pirates pitcher to throw a solo no-hitter threw out the first pitch before the final game of the brief homestand against the Mets on the 50th anniversary of his accomplishment Sunday. <\/p>\n
On Monday August 9, 1976 at home, John Candelaria faced a loaded Los Angeles Dodgers lineup limiting them to one walk retiring all 29 batters without allowing a hit in a 2-0 Pirates win.<\/p>\n
There were seven players who were all-stars in their career, another who was NL Rookie of the Year and a World Series MVP filling out that Dodgers nine. There was no score in the game until the fifth inning when Bill Robinson\u2019s two-run double gave the Bucs a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a close game, the other guy actually pitched a two-hitter, Doug Rau,\u201d Candelaria said on the Pirates Insider Show with Jason Mackey on 93.7 The Fan. \u201cThe only thing I was thinking about was I can\u2019t let them score. The game was that close we could lose if I gave up a couple of runs. All I my thought was, I know I have a no-hitter, but I got to keep the team in the game. That was my thought, keep on going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every pitch the lefty threw to close it in the ninth inning was a strike. He got Davey Lopes to groundout, Ted Sizemore to hit a foul pop-up and Bill Russell on a flyout to Al Oliver for the final out. <\/p>\n
\u201cAny pitcher that tells you that he doesn\u2019t realize he\u2019s got a no-hitter going on, and I didn\u2019t realize I had one until the fifth inning, they are full of it,\u201d Candelaria said on the Pirates Insider Show. \u201cYou are a pitcher. You know when you\u2019ve given up your first hit because the guy is on first base.\u201d<\/p>\n
The then 22-year-old would finish that season 16-7 with a 3.15 ERA and 11 complete games. He would become a 20-game winner the next season finishing 20-5 with an NL leading 2.34 ERA finishing fifth in Cy Young Award voting behind Steve Carlton, Tommy John, future Pirate Rick Reutschel and Tom Seaver. He would win a World Series two years later with the Pirates.<\/p>\n
One other note about that night at Three Rivers Stadium, it was Candy Night for the man nicknamed \u2018The Candy Man\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first 10,000 people and I think only 8,000-some showed up,\u201d Candelaria told Mackey on the Pirates Insider Show on 93.7 The Fan. \u201cBeing who I am, you know what, I just pitched a no-hitter on Clark Bar candy night. I went over to the Clark Bar the next day to talk to the vice president of the company and said \u2018I pitched a no-hitter on Clark Bar candy night, can we do something?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe guy goes, \u2018kid that\u2019s a great idea, get out of here\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) \u2013 The last Pirates pitcher to throw a solo no-hitter threw out the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4662,94533,1423,4606,110951,73,75,74,10997],"class_list":["post-262230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-baseball","tag-john-candelaria","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-mets","tag-no-hitter","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-pirates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}