Ken Holtzman, Who Pitched Two No-Hitters for the Cubs, Is Dead at 78

Ken Holtzman, a left-hander who pitched two no-hitters for the Chicago Cubs and received three World Series with the Oakland A’s in a 15-season profession, died on Monday in St. Louis. He was 78.

He had been hospitalized for the final three weeks with coronary heart and respiratory sicknesses, his brother, Bob, mentioned in confirming the demise.

Holtzman received 174 video games, probably the most for a Jewish pitcher in Major League Baseball — 9 greater than the Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax, who is taken into account top-of-the-line pitchers ever and who had a shorter profession.

In addition to his win whole, Holtzman, who at 6 ft 2 inches and 175 kilos lower a lanky determine, had a profession earned run common of three.49 and was chosen for the 1972 and 1973 All-Star groups.

Holtzman, at 23, threw his first no-hitter on Aug. 19, 1969, a 3-0 victory over the Atlanta Braves — a efficiency distinguished by the truth that he didn’t strike out any Braves. It was the primary time since 1923 {that a} no-hitter had been pitched and not using a strikeout.

“I didn’t have my good curve, and I must have thrown 90 percent fastballs,” Holtzman advised The Atlanta Constitution afterward. “When I saw my curve wasn’t breaking early in the game, I thought it might be a long day.”

His second no-hitter got here on June 3, 1971, in opposition to the Cincinnati Reds at their ballpark, Riverfront Stadium, the place he struck out six and walked 4.

“The fans in the first row behind our dugout wouldn’t let me forget I had a no-hitter going tonight,” he advised The Chicago Tribune. “I guess from the fourth inning on, they would yell at me that I was going to lose my no-hitter.”

But it was a excessive level in a troublesome season, by which his document was 9-15 and his E.R.A. jumped to 4.48 from 3.38 the 12 months earlier than. He additionally had a fractious relationship with Manager Leo Durocher.

In the off season, the Cubs traded Holtzman to Oakland for the outfielder Rick Monday.

“The air is cleared now,” Holtzman advised The Tribune. “I wouldn’t have cared if the Cubs had traded me for two dozen eggs.”

The commerce revived his profession.

Kenneth Dale Holtzman was born on Nov. 3, 1945, in St. Louis. His father, Henry, was a equipment vendor. His mom, Jacqueline (Lapp) Holtzman, managed the house.

Holtzman had a 31-3 document at University City High School, exterior St. Louis, and performed for the University of Illinois. As a sophomore, he received six video games and struck out 72 batters in 57 innings. He was chosen by the Cubs within the fourth spherical of the 1965 newbie draft.

He spent a lot of the 1965 season within the minor leagues, the place he compiled an 8-3 document, earlier than being known as up by the Cubs.

Holtzman left the Cubs in 1971 with a 74-69 document. He fared considerably higher with the A’s, a Seventies dynasty whose gamers included Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Catfish Hunter and Rollie Fingers. In Oakland’s World Series championship years, from 1972 to 1974, Holtzman had a 59-41 common season document. In World Series video games, he was 4-1.

In early 1976, Holtzman was one in every of 9 A’s gamers whose unsigned contracts had been renewed with 20 % wage cuts by Charles O. Finley, the workforce’s capricious proprietor.

“The man doesn’t care if I leave or not,” Holtzman, a union activist who was the workforce’s participant consultant, advised The New York Times throughout spring coaching that 12 months.

Soon after, he and Jackson had been traded to the Baltimore Orioles. But in late June, Holtzman was despatched to the Yankees in a 10-player commerce. With New York, although, his pitching was not as environment friendly because it been in Oakland, and Manager Billy Martin declined to make use of him within the postseason rotation in 1976, when the Yankees had been swept by the Reds, and once more in 1977, when the Yankees defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers in six video games.

After the fifth sport of the Series, Holtzman was requested if he anticipated to pitch within the remaining video games.

“No, not really, not when I haven’t been used all year,” he advised The Times, referring to a daily season by which he had appeared in solely 18 video games, a few of them in aid.

His appearances grew even much less frequent in 1978. He pitched solely 17⅔ innings in 5 video games earlier than he was traded again to the Cubs. At the time of the commerce, Holtzman had challenged the Yankees’ resolution to place him on the 21-day disabled record for an ailing again.

“I guess they’re just glad to get rid of me,” he advised The Times.

He was 6-12 with the Cubs till they launched him after the 1979 season.

Holtzman, who was an insurance coverage dealer after his enjoying days, ran the athletic division for a number of years on the Jewish Community Center in St. Louis after his retirement.

He returned to baseball in 2007 because the supervisor of a workforce within the Israel Baseball League. Dan Kurtzer, the commissioner, recalled in a cellphone interview that Holtzman’s expertise within the Major League Baseball Players Association made being a supervisor troublesome for him.

“From the beginning, I impressed upon him that he was part of management, but it never sunk in,” he mentioned. “We had some labor issues, and I needed the managers to be supportive, and Ken had trouble with that because he was labor oriented.”

Holtzman left the workforce — the Petach Tikva Pioneers, based mostly close to Tel Aviv, who completed in final place — with two weeks to go within the season. Two months earlier than his departure, he advised an Israeli web site that the league’s organizers had rushed into its first, and solely, season, with out the right preparation, like satisfactory fields.

In addition to his brother, Bob, a former minor league pitcher, Holtzman is survived by his daughters, Robyn Schuster, Stacey Steffens and Lauren Fyle; 4 grandchildren; and a sister, Janice Koertel. His marriage to Michelle Collons resulted in divorce.

Holtzman, as a Cub, and Koufax, with the Dodgers, confronted one another as soon as, at Wrigley Field in Chicago on Sept. 25, 1966.

It was Holtzman’s first full season and Koufax’s final. In the fifth inning, at which level Holtzman had not given up successful, Bob Holtzman advised their father that he was going to the lads’s room. “He said, ‘You’re not going anywhere, he’s pitching a no-hitter,’” the brother recalled in a cellphone interview. “He wouldn’t let me leave my seat.”

Holtzman carried the no-hitter into the ninth inning, nevertheless it was damaged up by the primary hitter, Dick Schofield, who singled to heart area. Holtzman then surrendered the shutout, however received, 2-1, on a two-hitter, with eight strikeouts. Koufax gave up 4 hits.

“I was satisfied with my performance,” Koufax advised The Los Angeles Times, “but Ken was too good for us today.”