Last year I identified Dick Redding’s whitewash of the Cuban Stars at Atlantic City on August 28, 1912, as the “first Negro league no-hitter.” Here’s an even earlier candidate, though it depends on how you define “Negro leagues.”
On April 21, 1911, the aptonymous John Goodgame of the West Baden Sprudels set down the French Lick Plutos with zero hits, striking out eleven and walking one, at Pluto Park in French Lick, Indiana.
(Indianapolis Freeman, April 29, 1911, p. 7)
The only issue here, I guess, is whether the game meets the requirements to be considered a “black major league” game. I’ve included the 1911 Sprudels in the Negro Leagues DB but not the Plutos, but this is simply because I haven’t found any box scores for Plutos games vs. other black teams. (The 1912 Plutos are in the DB.) Here’s a Plutos lineup from a game against a white semipro team three weeks later:
(Bedford, Ind., Daily Mail, May 15, 1911, p. 1)
They had George Shively, String Bean Williams, Albert Toney, Roland Griffin, and Henry Hannon, along with a few players from the pre-C. I. Taylor Indianapolis ABCs (Sam Thompson, W. Higbee, Otis Francis). I’d say they were no worse than some of the weaker teams included in the DB. At any rate this would, I think, be the earliest known no-hitter between black professional teams. (Though I wouldn’t bet against early no-hitters being found in, say, the Texas Colored League.)
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