Rolling with Reuss

Long-time and well-traveled major leaguer Jerry Reuss, then with the Los Angeles Dodgers, no-hits the Giants 8-0 on this date 44 years ago at San Francisco's Candlestick Park.

Reuss throws strikes on 73 of his 105 pitches in a 1980 game that lasts just two hours and 13 minutes before a Friday night crowd of 20,285.

Reuss needs just 25 pitches over the final three innings.

He records 27 outs on 17 groundouts, eight flyouts and two strikeouts.

Only a throwing error by shortstop Bill Russell on Jack Clark’s two-out, first-inning grounder in the hole keeps Reuss from pitching a perfect game.

“There was no reason to be unhappy,” Reuss says years later of the error that cost him a perfect game.

“I consider the feat to be better than a perfecto. I got the equivalent of 28 outs!”

Looking back, Reuss says he always is thinking no-hitter from the outset.

“From the first pitch,” Reuss says. “That’s the way I approached every game I started.”