(Updated March 5, 2026)
On a night when Juan Marichal was supposed to start for the Giants, Gaylord Perry got the call instead and outdueled the most dominant pitcher in baseball.
On Sept. 17, 1968, Perry pitched a no-hitter against the Cardinals at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. The Giants won, 1-0, overcoming a typically stellar performance by Bob Gibson.
Perry, pitching on three days’ rest because Marichal was sidelined by a sore right knee, tired in the eighth, prompting Giants pitching coach Larry Jansen to ask manager Herman Franks whether a reliever should get ready. Franks stuck with Perry, who delivered the only no-hitter of his Hall of Fame career.
One and done
The Tuesday night game against the Giants was the Cardinals’ first since they clinched the National League pennant two days earlier on Sept. 15, 1968, at Houston.
Manager Red Schoendienst started most of his regulars against Perry. The exceptions were Bobby Tolan, who substituted for Lou Brock in left field, and Phil Gagliano, who replaced Julian Javier at second base.
Gibson, on his way to securing NL Most Valuable Player and Cy Young awards, entered the game with a 21-7 record and 1.13 ERA. Perry was 14-14 and 2.55.
In the bottom of the first inning, Giants second baseman Ron Hunt, a St. Louis native, hit Gibson’s third pitch of the game over the left-field fence for a home run, his second and last of the season.
Hunt told the San Francisco Examiner the pitch “was about waist high and I think Gibson was just trying to throw me a strike.”
“Hunt hit a fastball that I threw a little inside,” Gibson said to United Press International.
Getting wet
In the second, the Cardinals got their first base runner when Mike Shannon walked with two outs, but Perry retired the next batter, Gagliano.
With two outs in the fourth, Perry made what he described as a “fat pitch,” a high slider, to Orlando Cepeda, but it was popped up to first baseman Willie McCovey, who caught it in foul territory for an out.
“The most important thing was my control,” Perry said to the Associated Press. “I was hitting the spots, keeping the ball low and my slider was really working.
“I knew after the fifth inning that I had a chance for a no-hitter and I tried to hit the corners all the way.”
Perry threw three types of pitches _ “a fastball, a sinking slider and a slider that was breaking real sharp on the outside,” catcher Dick Dietz told the Examiner.
“Most of the Cardinals charged that Perry threw about 75 percent spitballs or Vaseline balls,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
“Perry was throwing his same old sinker, but it was wet and it sure dropped,” Schoendienst said.
Wetting the ball with saliva or any substance such as Vaseline was against the rules, and the Cardinals were adamant Perry was in violation. Cepeda told the Post-Dispatch that Perry threw him six spitballs or Vaseline balls in his last at-bat, and pinch-hitter Johnny Edwards said all but one pitch to him were spitters.
Giants reliever Frank Linzy told the Tulsa World, “Gaylord threw about 90 percent spitters that night.” Linzy said Vaseline usually was hidden behind the right ear and underside of the left wrist.
In his 1974 book “Me and the Spitter,” Perry admitted, “I was greasing that night, but only a few times.”
“I had a great slider that day. Honest,” Perry said.
Fine fielding
Cardinals center fielder Curt Flood said, “We were trying to do anything to get a base hit.”
The Cardinals came close to getting a hit in the sixth.
Dal Maxvill led off and smacked a sharp grounder to Perry’s left. A right-hander, Perry wore his glove on his left hand and he was able to field the ball and throw out Maxvill. “The ball just fell right into my glove,” Perry said to the Post-Dispatch. “If the ball had been hit to my right, I couldn’t have got it.”
With two outs, Tolan cracked a hard grounder between first and second, but McCovey snared it and made a perfect toss to Perry, who was covering first. Perry credited McCovey with making a “tremendous play to his right.”
The Cardinals hit two balls to the outfield the entire game and both were caught by Bobby Bonds in center.
Finish the job
In the eighth, Gagliano walked with two outs and Jansen, the pitching coach, didn’t like what he was seeing. “When a pitcher’s ball starts to come up from the (batter’s) knees and gets around the waist or higher, then you have to feel he is beginning to tire,” Jansen said. “That’s the way it looked in the eighth.”
Jansen told Franks, “I think he is beginning to lose his stuff. Do you want to get somebody warm?”
Franks replied, “Not until they get a hit off him.”
After the walk to Gagliano, Perry struck out Edwards, who was batting for Maxvill.
In the ninth, Brock, batting for Gibson, led off and grounded out to short. Tolan followed with a groundout to second and Flood, who led the club in hits, came up next. “I was really worried about Flood,” Perry said. “Flood hits to all fields and I thought he might hit a ball between the infielders.”
Instead, Flood took three called strikes. Boxscore
Good calls
In his book “Stranger to the Game,” Gibson praised home plate umpire Harry Wendelstedt, “who distinguished himself with what I consider to be the best job of calling balls and strikes that I ever witnessed.”
“Harry didn’t miss a pitch all night,” said Gibson, “and I told him so afterwards. That wasn’t an easy thing for me to do, not only because I was reluctant to compliment an umpire, as a rule, but mostly because I was not in a sociable mood when the game ended.”
Gibson’s line: 8 innings, 4 hits, 1 run, 2 walks, 10 strikeouts. “That may have been one of the best games I ever pitched,” Gibson told Stan McNeal of Cardinals Yearbook in 2018.
Perry’s line: 9 innings, 0 hits, 0 runs, 2 walks, 9 strikeouts.
The no-hitter was the first against the Cardinals since Don Cardwell of the Cubs did it on May 15, 1960. Perry also became the first Giant to toss a no-hitter since Marichal achieved one against Houston on June 15, 1963.
Perry’s gem was completed in one hour, 40 minutes and played before 9,546 spectators. He threw 101 pitches.
After celebrating with a dish of ice cream, Perry signed autographs for about 100 fans who were waiting for him outside the clubhouse.
Less than 24 hours later, on Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 18, 1968, Ray Washburn pitched a no-hitter against the Giants in the Cardinals’ 2-0 victory at Candlestick Park. Boxscore
Perry and Washburn became the first big-league pitchers to toss no-hitters in consecutive games.
On Sept. 1, 1958, in the opening game of a doubleheader at St. Louis, Mizell established a National League record for most walks in a shutout, issuing nine in a 1-0 Cardinals victory.
On Aug. 29, 1948, Robinson produced a home run, triple, double and single for the Dodgers in the first game of a doubleheader at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis. Robinson also scored three runs, drove in two and had a stolen base, propelling the Dodgers to a 12-7 victory.
On Aug. 26, 1993, the Mets cut their connection to Coleman, telling him to stay home, after prosecutors charged him with a felony for throwing an explosive device similar to a grenade into a parking lot and injuring three people, including two children.
On Aug. 31, 1943, at Pittsburgh, Walker drove a ball past DiMaggio in center field and circled the bases for a two-run inside-the-park home run, lifting the Cardinals to a 4-2 victory.
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