Dwight Gooden's No-Hitter (1996)

May 14, 1996. A Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium, a modest crowd of just over 20,000 scattered around the place, and Dwight Gooden on the mound for a New York Yankees team, in the middle of the 1996 championship season, that had nearly cut him a month earlier.

He'd spend the next nine innings making that decision look like malpractice.

The Guy Nobody Trusted

Gooden wasn't supposed to be anywhere near this moment. He'd tested positive for cocaine in 1994, got popped again while serving that suspension, and MLB banned him for the rest of that season and all of 1995 -- gone, full stop. The Mets, the team that made him a Rookie of the Year and a Cy Young winner before he turned 21, released him and moved on.

George Steinbrenner didn't move on. He signed Gooden in February 1996 on a modest, incentive-heavy deal and reunited him with Mel Stottlemyre, his old Mets pitching coach who now ran the Yankees' staff. It didn't look like a genius move early. Gooden barely made the Opening Day rotation, then got rocked for an ERA north of 11.00 through his first three starts. By mid-April he was in the bullpen, and the front office was seriously discussing whether to just release him.

Here's the part that makes the whole thing feel scripted: Gooden only got his rotation spot back because David Cone went down. Cone had an aneurysm discovered in his pitching shoulder, had surgery on May 10, and was gone for months (a genuinely scary injury that becomes its own Yankees legend three years later). Somebody had to take his turn. Four days later, that somebody threw a no-hitter.

Nine Innings, Six Walks, and One Sprinting Catch

This wasn't a clean no-hitter (Gooden never did anything the easy way). He walked six Mariners and needed well over 130 pitches to finish it, laboring against a Seattle lineup that had a 20-year-old Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr., and Edgar Martinez in it -- not exactly a lineup you no-hit by accident.

The Yankees almost lost it in the first inning. Darren Bragg walked to lead off, then A-Rod lined a shot to center that looked like a base hit off the bat. Gerald Williams -- starting in place of an injured Bernie Williams -- ran it down, caught it, and fired behind Bragg to double him off first. One inning in, and the no-hitter nearly ends before Gooden throws his 15th pitch. (Gerald Williams saves the day and gets a footnote in Yankees history. Somebody buy that man a drink.)

The ninth inning turned into a slog. Gooden walked A-Rod leading off, got Griffey to ground out to first with A-Rod moving up to second, walked Edgar Martinez, then uncorked a wild pitch to Jay Buhner that moved both runners up. Joe Torre stuck with him anyway. Gooden struck out Buhner swinging for his fifth K of the night, and then Paul Sorrento popped a 2-1 pitch to Derek Jeter at short. Game over. A freakin' no-hitter. 2-0, Yankees.

It was the first no-hitter by a Yankees right-hander since Don Larsen's perfect game back in 1956 -- forty years of nobody doing it. And it happened because a guy nearly out of baseball a month earlier refused to let the walks pile up into something worse.

The Part That Actually Mattered

Here's the thing that made grown men in the Bronx tear up that night: Gooden's father, Dan, was scheduled for open-heart surgery in Tampa the following morning. Gooden thought about skipping the start. He decided his dad would've wanted him on the mound. He cried in the dugout runway between innings. His father listened to the whole thing on a hospital radio and wept when Sorrento's popup landed in Jeter's glove.

Gooden flew to Tampa the next morning and handed his father the game ball.

That's the real headline. The no-hitter is the box score. The plane ticket is the story.

Nobody remembers Gooden's 1996 season for the numbers -- he finished 11-7, wore down that September, and Torre left him off the postseason roster entirely as the Yankees went and won the whole thing against Atlanta anyway. Gooden didn't throw a single playoff pitch and still got a ring. Sometimes a no-hitter in May says more about a season than anything that happens in October.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Dwight Gooden throw a no-hitter for the Yankees?

Yes. On May 14, 1996, Gooden no-hit the Seattle Mariners 2-0 at Yankee Stadium, walking six and striking out five in a start he only got because David Cone had gone down with a shoulder injury four days earlier.

Was Dwight Gooden's no-hitter a perfect game?

No. Gooden walked six batters and threw a wild pitch, so it wasn't a perfect game -- just a no-hitter. It's still the only no-hitter of his career, Mets included.

Why was Dwight Gooden's no-hitter such a big story beyond the box score?

Gooden's father, Dan, was scheduled for open-heart surgery in Tampa the morning after the game. Gooden considered skipping the start to be with him, decided to pitch instead, cried in the dugout between innings, and flew to Tampa the next day to give his father the game ball.

Where did Dwight Gooden's no-hitter rank among Yankees pitching history?

It was the first no-hitter thrown by a Yankees right-hander since Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series -- a 40-year gap.

How did Dwight Gooden even get back into the Yankees rotation before the no-hitter?

He'd been bumped to the bullpen in April after an ERA north of 11.00 through his first three starts. He only got his rotation spot back because David Cone was diagnosed with a pitching-shoulder aneurysm and needed surgery on May 10, 1996 -- four days before the no-hitter.