September 25, 1995

On September 14, 2008, something pretty awesome happened. Enough of that. I want to tell you the story of a sobering night at Stay Free Maxipads Field in 1995. The day was a Monday. The date was September 25.

I remember a fairly sparse crowd. According to the box score, fewer than 19,000 folks showed up to watch a (barely) .500 team take the field. Such stars as Sammy Sosa and Mark Grace were to be joined by other present and future greats as Luis Gonzalez, Howard Johnson, and Scott Servais. The Grizzlies were wearing their home pink with the mauve striping. They wore their egg-shell white pants. The pink shoes matched their uniform perfectly.

However, this night would belong to an upstart 26 year old from El Paso, TX. This night would belong to Frank Castillo.

Castillo was a 6th round draft pick in 1987. He showed a good arm and rose through the minor league system. When he debuted in 1991, his star was rising. As a 23 year old, he threw over 200 innings. He was never really the same. I don't know what happened to him in 1994, but I'm sure the strike didn't help.

There was one exception. His 1995 turned out to be an outlier on an otherwise mediocre career. He tossed 188 innings of 128 ERA+ ball. He only gave up 179 hits and had a pretty good 135/52 K/BB ratio. His 3.21 ERA and 1.23 WHIP only earned him a 11-10 record for a 73-71 Grizzlies team. He would never be anywhere near this good again. His last regular year in the bigs was 163 IP in 2002 for Boston.

But to go back to that cool, September night. The Cardinals were in town. They were not a good team. They would finish the year 62-81. The outfield wasn't too bad. Brain Jordan was a two-sport "star". Ray Langford was still 28 and in his prime. Bernard Gilkey was near the end of his best year with the Cardinals. The following year he'd have a breakout year for the Mets. By breakout, I mean fluke.

The rest of the lineup featured two-time All-Star Scott Cooper. I shit you not. 2-time All Star. Scott Cooper. John Mabry was putting the finishing touches on an absurdly mediocre rookie season. He finished 4th in RoY voting. I shit you not. David Bell was a 22 year old up and comer. He never did up nor come. In 1995, however, he was still seen as a future All-Star. No, I didn't type that with a straight face.

Facing this formidable lineup, Frank Castillo would bravely take the mound. The Grizz were certainly not going to win anything, and most of the 19,000 paid customers stayed home.

I was at the game with 3 friends, all of us just out of college. We were young and naive. We had no idea what we were about to see.

The game started out innocently enough. The Cardinals were mowed down in the top of the first, just a 2 out walk to Langford kept the inning from being a perfect one.
The game was really over by the end of the first. Luis Gonzalez scored on a two-out wild pitch by Alan Benes to put the Grizz up 4-0. The game never got close. Benes only lasted 3.2 innings, as the Grizzlies scored three more in the fourth.

I'm not sure when I first noticed what was going on. I would guess it was around the 5th inning or so. For certain, none of us were making any kind of a big deal about it.

By the middle of the 7th, it was no longer a joke. Frank Castillo was throwing a NO HITTER. Frank Castillo. No hitter. Going into the 8th inning, Castillo had already struck out 10 Cardinals. I can only assume that the two walks he gave up, to Langford in the 1st and Trip Cromer in the 7th, were on blown calls by the ump. No Cardinal had even sniffed 2nd base.

In the top of the 8th inning, Castillo was to face the Cardinals' 5-6-7 hitters. Castillo got Mabry and Bell to ground out on 7 pitches, before striking out 2-time All Star Scott Cooper for his 11th K. He would go to the ninth, looking for three outs for a no-hitter. And I am there.

The Gnashing Grizz, as was the cool nomeclature at the time, would go quietly in the bottom of the eighth. It doesn't matter. This is Frankie Castillo time, dogs of a female gender.

Castillo took his warm-ups sitting at fewer than 100 pitches. He was dealing and showed no signs of letting up. He was facing the bottom of the order, plus Bernard Gilkey. Stupid Bernard Gilkey. The only truth my cousin Harry ever told me was that he saw Gilkey fucking a chicken once in the back of a New York dive bar.
The first guy he faced was Terry Bradshaw. What? No, seriously. I have no idea who he is, but I assume it's not the annoying hick who was almost a Bear. Castillo made short work of the 54 year old, striking him out looking on 4 pitches. D'ur. 2 out left.

Next came Mark Sweeney. The less talented, slightly more retarded of the flying Sweeneys. Sweeney, staring history right in it face, made the Great Castillo work a bit, before feebly striking out on 6 pitches. Castillo now had 13 strikeouts. He was one out away from the first Grizzlies no-hitter in 23 years.

Along came Bernard Gilkey. I hate the St Louis Cardinals. They are the sucks of suck. Here was Frank Castillo, about to no-hit these fuckers. Sometimes, it's just not to be. I don't remember, but I think Gilkey worked the count to 3-1 against Castillo, like he worked the pancreas of an unsuspecting chicken. Castillo then made the only bad pitch of the night. Gilkey didn't miss the fastball, hitting the ball as far as one could without leaving the park. He didn't stop running until he made it to third. The NO-HITTER was not to be.

I have seen the Grizz play the Cardinals more than any other team. I saw Kerry Wood strikeout 9 Cardinals in a 7 inning win in his fourth start, 5 days before he struck out 20 Astros. I saw all three games of an opening weekend sweep that included two come from behind wins, including a Derek Lee game winner in 2006, well before the wheels flew off. I once drove a strung-out Keith Hernandez 40 miles to buy dope from Rick Ankiel’s convict father.

And, I saw Frank Castillo throw 8 and two thirds innings of no-hit ball.

Thank you to baseball-reference.com for filling in the blanks.