Tigers Once Tried To Break Up Nolan Ryan No-Hitter With Table Leg

When you go down the list of pictures from baseball history, you really have to sit and wonder who is the greatest pitcher of all time? A lot of people can argue that Satchel Page would’ve been considered the greatest of all time had his achievements actually been logged accurately.

But when you think of modern day pictures a few that really stand out is "The Big Unit" Randy Johnson, who would just freeze people at the plate with his speed. Another one of the all-time greats also has to go to "The Strikeout King," Nolan Ryan. The guy played for an incredible 27 years and logged over 5700 strikeouts in his career.

Get our free mobile app

On top of that, he also threw seven career no-hitters. There is a funny story about his second career no-hitter, which took place on July 15th in 1973. The game was exactly 2 months after he had thrown his first career no-hitter against the Kansas City Royals.

In this game, he was playing the Detroit Tigers and the Tigers were down to their last at bat, when Norm Cash stepped up to the plate. After taking a few check swings the umpire notice something was weird about Cash's bat, realizing that it wasn’t a bat at all, but a table leg.

As soon as the umpire goes to question the bat, Norm shows him the table leg, and the umpire almost falls over from laughter and he chucks it back towards the dugout.

It’s said that he told the umpire, "It doesn’t make any difference I won’t hit it anyway."

Cash struck out on three pitches, and Nolan Ryan secured his 2nd career No-Hitter.