(Updated Sept. 19, 2022)
As a youth in his hometown of Winston-Salem, N.C., where the Cardinals had a farm club, Don Cardwell rooted for a promising prospect, Joe Cunningham. A few years later, Cunningham made the dramatic final out in the best game Cardwell pitched in the major leagues.
On May 15, 1960, Cardwell pitched a no-hitter for the Cubs against the Cardinals at Wrigley Field in Chicago. It was Cardwell’s first appearance for the Cubs since being acquired from the Phillies, and it was the first no-hitter pitched against the Cardinals in 41 years. Before Cardwell, Hod Eller of the Reds was the last to do it on May 11, 1919.
Needing one more out to complete the no-hitter, Cardwell faced his boyhood favorite, Cunningham, who laced a sinking line drive. The ball seemed destined to drop for a single until left fielder Walt Moryn made a catch near his shoetops.
Cardinals connections
While in high school, Cardwell got a job at the Winston-Salem ballpark. “I used to hang up the score for each inning on the board and get $2.50 a night for doing it,” Cardwell told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I went to the park often to watch Harvey Haddix, Vinegar Bend Mizell, Joe Cunningham and Don Blasingame.”
In his senior season of prep baseball, Cardwell pitched a pair of no-hitters. The first was a perfect game and the second occurred in the state title game.
Cardwell was 18 when the Phillies signed him in 1954. He made his big-league debut with them three years later. A 6-foot-4 right-hander, Cardwell threw hard from a sidearm delivery but had losing records with the Phillies.
“Catching his ball was like catching a brick. It was that heavy,” Phillies first baseman Ed Bouchee said in the book “We Played the Game.”
On May 13, 1960, the Phillies traded Cardwell and Bouchee to the Cubs for second baseman Tony Taylor and catcher Cal Neeman. Cardwell wasn’t surprised to be traded, but expected it would be to the Cardinals, whose manager, Solly Hemus, had been his Phillies teammate.
“I thought I’d be with your ball club by now,” Cardwell told the Post-Dispatch.
Hello, Chicago
Two days after the trade, Cardwell was the starting pitcher for the Cubs in Game 2 of a Sunday doubleheader against the Cardinals at Chicago.
In Game 1, Larry Jackson pitched a four-hitter in a 6-1 victory, ending the Cardinals’ eight-game losing streak. It was their first road win of the season in 13 attempts. Boxscore
Entering Game 2, Cardwell was an unlikely candidate to pitch a no-hitter versus the Cardinals. He had an 0-3 record against them since reaching the majors.
The Cardinals’ batting order was Cunningham, right field; Alex Grammas, shortstop; Bill White, first base; Ken Boyer, third base; Daryl Spencer, second base; Leon Wagner, left field; Curt Flood, center field; Hal Smith, catcher; Lindy McDaniel pitcher.
With one out in the first inning, Cardwell issued a walk to Grammas before retiring the next 26 batters in a row.
“His fastball was his best pitch,” Cubs catcher Del Rice told The Sporting News. “We used some breaking stuff early in the game, but from the fifth inning on I called fastballs almost entirely.”
Cardwell credited Rice and an unusual pitching delivery with making a difference in his performance.
Rice, 37, debuted with the Cardinals in 1945 and played for them the first 11 years of his major-league career. “I never had to shake Del off once,” Cardwell said. “He called the pitches perfectly.”
As for his pitching motion, Cardwell explained he developed a way to go into his windup with the ball in his glove instead of his hand because he suspected batters were detecting his pitches. “I was determined to hide my pitches better,” he said.
Cardwell “doesn’t have the ball in his right hand when he starts his windup,” The Sporting News observed. “The ball is in his glove. Cardwell pumps once with both arms going above his head, but with his right hand empty. Then he repeats the pumping action and at the top of the windup he takes the ball out of the glove and comes through with the pitch.”
Tough outs
The biggest threats to Cardwell’s no-hitter came in the last two innings.
In the eighth, Spencer led off “with a sizzling smash” to second baseman Jerry Kindall, who ranged to his right, “got in front of it, gloved it on a wicked first hop” and threw to first in time, The Sporting News reported.
After Wagner grounded out, Stan Musial batted for Flood. Cardwell threw sinking fastballs and Musial struck out. “I was swinging at the sound,” Musial told the Post-Dispatch.
Said Rice: “He was really humming at the finish.”
In the ninth, Cardwell’s former Phillies teammate, Carl Sawatski, batting for Hal Smith, led off and sent a drive to right. Bob Will, who stood 5 feet 10, usually played right field for the 1960 Cubs, but after Will went hitless in Game 1, manager Lou Boudreau put George Altman, who stood 6 feet 4, in right for Game 2. “Altman went back and grabbed the ball with a one-handed, leaping catch in front of the wall,” The Sporting News noted.
“When George Altman reached high to get Carl Sawatski’s drive, I went up three feet with him,” Cardwell told the Post-Dispatch.
Several Cubs told the St. Louis Globe-Democrat that Bob Will never would have reached Sawatski’s drive.
After George Crowe, batting for McDaniel, flied out to center, Cunningham came to the plate. The drama intensified with each pitch as Cunningham worked the count to 3-and-2.
Cunningham hit a low liner to left. Walt Moryn, nicknamed “Moose,” loped forward and reached down at the last moment to catch the ball before it landed.
“For this once,” wrote The Sporting News, “the Moose turned gazelle.”
Moryn told the Chicago Tribune, “If I’d have missed that last catch, I’d have been begging for an error.”
Said Cardwell: “When Walt Moryn came in and grabbed that low liner by Cunningham, I sank to the ground with him.” Video
“Thousands of fans poured onto the field and surrounded their new hero,” the Associated Press reported. “A score of ushers and police officers needed something like a half hour to get Cardwell safely into the Cubs dressing room.”
The Cubs won, 4-0, in a game played in 1:46. Boxscore
Changing places
On June 15, 1960, exactly one month after his big catch, Moryn was traded by the Cubs to the Cardinals.
Cardwell was 8-14 for the 1960 Cubs. He was 15-14 in 1961 and 7-16 in 1962.
On Oct. 17, 1962, the Cubs traded Cardwell, Altman and catcher Moe Thacker to the Cardinals for pitchers Jackson and McDaniel, plus catcher Jimmie Schaffer.
“Cardwell is a quality pitcher with a quality arm who has never lived up to his potential,” Cardinals general manager Bing Devine told the Globe-Democrat.
Cardwell never pitched for the Cardinals. A month after they acquired him, the Cardinals dealt Cardwell and shortstop Julio Gotay to the Pirates for shortstop Dick Groat and pitcher Diomedes Olivo. Groat played a key role in helping the Cardinals become World Series champions in 1964.
Cardwell twice was a 13-game winner for the Pirates. In 1969, he pitched for the World Series champion Mets.
In 40 appearances, including 32 starts, versus the Cardinals in his career, Cardwell was 5-19 with a 4.55 ERA.
RetroSimba 
Of the five games that Cardwell won against us, four came as a Cub. On April 16 of that same year, Walt Moryn used his bat to keep the Cubs from being no-hit by Sam Jones and the Giants. In the 8th inning, Moryn came in as a pinch hitter and hit a homerun. Two months after Cardwell pitched this gem, he came close to being at the other end of a no-hitter. Ernie Broglio held Chicago to a second inning single while striking out 14. That video is great Joe Cunningham had the right idea of trying to hit a blooper to the opposite field but give Moryn credit for making a great play.
Thanks for the info. Yes, that ball off the bat of Joe Cunningham had so little hang time. It zipped out there fast. Walt Moryn had to react quickly and he did.