Harry Wormwood played seven seasons in the New England League with Worcester, Fall River and Portland. His statistics are incomplete but he was basically a .500 pitcher and weak hitting utility infielder with a fairly uneventful career until June 9, 1910.
Pitching for the Fall River Indians Wormwood pitched an 11-Inning no-hitter against his former team, the Worcester Busters. Game summaries mention that Fall River did not commit any errors, but don’t say whether Wormwood walked any batters.
The Eastern press couldn’t ignore the fact that just one year earlier in the Bluegrass League Fred Toney of the Winchester Hustlers had thrown a 17-inning no-hitter against the Lexington Colts, so the papers referred to Wormwood’s feat as “The Eastern record for a no-hit game.”
Toney of course would become famous for another no-hitter in 1917 when he was with the Cincinnati Reds—he and Chicago Cubs pitcher Jim “Hippo” Vaughn hooked up in one of baseball’s greatest pitching duels, with neither allowing a hit through nine innings. Vaughn would allow a hit in the 10th and lose the game 1-0.
But back in 1910 Toney was not well known and was referred to in the New York Times and other papers simply as “Pitcher Torrey (sic) of Winchester, KY,” in the coverage of Wormwood’s no-hitter.
The following season Wormwood nearly duplicated his feat. He held the Lawrence Barristers hitless for 10 2/3 innings; Wormwood gave up three straight singles in the 11th, but retired the side without giving up a run. He held Lawrence hitless for two more innings and the game ended in a 0-0 tie after 13 innings. 1911 was Wormwood’s best season, he posted a 20-15 record and hit .289.
Harry Wormwood, from a picture of his high school football team in Auburn, ME
Wormwood finished his career with the Portland Duffs in 1913—newspaper reports from 1914 and 1915 say he spent time with the Lewiston Cupids in the New England League and the Hartford Senators in the Colonial League, but there are no records to confirm this.
Wormwood passed away January 9, 1955 in Auburn, Maine.
Baseball History Daily 
One Response to “11-Inning No-Hitter”