Virgil Trucks Marquee

b. April 26, 1917 · Detroit Tigers 1941–1943, 1945–1952, 1956, St. Louis Browns 1953, Chicago White Sox 1953–1955, Kansas City Athletics 1957–1958, New York Yankees 1958

He no-hit Washington in May 1952 and Philadelphia in August, and finished the year 5-19 for a Detroit club that lost 104 games. Two no-hitters in one season had been done twice before, by Johnny Vander Meer and Allie Reynolds, and never by a pitcher with a record like that.

Seventeen seasons gave him 177 wins against 135, a 3.39 earned run average, 2,682 innings and 33 shutouts. He led the American League in strikeouts and shutouts in 1949, and won 19 or 20 games three times, the last at thirty-seven for the White Sox. Two years of the war are missing from the middle of it.

He was from Alabama, threw very hard, and won the second game of the 1945 World Series for Detroit, a complete game, having pitched exactly one regular-season game that year after being discharged from the Navy. The 1964 ballot gave him four votes of 201. He died in 2013, at ninety-five.

Honors

Award	Times	Years
All-Star selection	2	1949, 1954

Batting, season by season

Year	Team	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	AVG
1941	DET	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	—
1942	DET	28	65	4	8	1	0	0	3	0	12	0	.123
1943	DET	33	72	7	13	1	0	0	7	2	4	0	.181
1945	DET	1	2	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	.000
1946	DET	32	95	4	17	4	0	0	5	0	13	0	.179
1947	DET	36	70	7	19	2	0	0	5	1	7	0	.271
1948	DET	43	79	6	13	0	1	0	2	2	14	0	.165
1949	DET	41	100	6	12	2	0	0	3	1	15	0	.120
1950	DET	7	20	2	3	1	0	0	0	0	2	0	.150
1951	DET	37	55	5	13	3	0	0	14	0	12	0	.236
1952	DET	35	64	3	12	0	0	1	3	1	11	1	.188
1953	CHW/SLB	40	88	6	19	4	0	1	7	0	13	0	.216
1954	CHW	40	93	5	17	2	0	0	8	1	21	0	.183
1955	CHW	32	64	2	8	1	0	0	6	0	12	0	.125
1956	DET	22	45	4	11	2	0	0	2	0	4	0	.244
1957	KCA	48	28	1	4	0	0	0	2	0	10	0	.143
1958	KCA/NYY	41	9	0	2	0	0	0	3	0	2	0	.222
Career	—	517	949	63	171	23	1	2	70	9	153	1	.180

Pitching, season by season

Year	Team	W	L	G	GS	SV	IP	H	ER	BB	SO	ERA
1941	DET	0	0	1	0	0	2.0	4	2	0	3	9.00
1942	DET	14	8	28	20	0	167.2	147	51	74	91	2.74
1943	DET	16	10	33	25	2	202.2	170	64	52	118	2.84
1945	DET	0	0	1	1	0	5.1	3	1	2	3	1.69
1946	DET	14	9	32	29	0	236.2	217	85	75	161	3.23
1947	DET	10	12	36	26	2	180.2	186	91	79	108	4.53
1948	DET	14	13	43	26	2	211.2	190	89	85	123	3.78
1949	DET	19	11	41	32	4	275.0	209	86	124	153	2.81
1950	DET	3	1	7	7	0	48.1	45	19	21	25	3.54
1951	DET	13	8	37	18	1	153.2	153	74	75	89	4.33
1952	DET	5	19	35	29	1	197.0	190	87	82	129	3.97
1953	CHW/SLB	20	10	40	33	3	264.1	234	86	99	149	2.93
1954	CHW	19	12	40	33	3	264.2	224	82	95	152	2.79
1955	CHW	13	8	32	26	0	175.0	176	77	61	91	3.96
1956	DET	6	5	22	16	1	120.0	104	51	63	43	3.83
1957	KCA	9	7	48	7	7	116.0	106	39	62	55	3.03
1958	KCA/NYY	2	2	41	0	4	61.2	58	25	39	41	3.65
Career	—	177	135	517	328	30	2682.1	2416	1009	1088	1534	3.39

On this day & linked events

1917

Born April 26, 1917

Birmingham, AL, USA

2013

Died March 23, 2013

1941

Major-league debut: Virgil Trucks

Virgil Trucks made a major-league debut on September 27, 1941.

1952

Virgil Trucks's No-Hitter

Virgil Trucks threw a no-hitter for the Detroit Tigers against the Washington Senators on May 15, 1952, winning 1–0.

1952

Virgil Trucks's No-Hitter

Virgil Trucks threw a no-hitter for the Detroit Tigers against the New York Yankees on August 25, 1952, winning 1–0.

1958

Final major-league game: Virgil Trucks

Virgil Trucks played a final major-league game on September 26, 1958.

Image: Bowman Gum, public domain