Ionia-Statewide-Wayne County MI Archives News.....Sportography August 16, 1913
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Marilyn Johnson McDowell texas26@gmail.com May 7, 2009, 4:13 pm

Trenton Evening News August 16, 1913
Ionia, Mich., isn't much of a city, as cities go. It is just an average county
seat town, with an asylum for insane criminals as an added attraction.
Nevertheless, Ionia has one claim to immortality, for the first no-hit game in
the history of baseball was played in its midst. that momentous contest was
staged thirty - seven years ago, Sunday, August 17, 1876, and Jim Garvin was the
twirler whose name will go rattling elletyclatter down the corridors of time as
the perpetrator that feat.
The contending teams that day were the St. Louis Reds and the Cass Club of
Detroit, and Garvin was in the box for the Mound City team. 
Just why the big city clubs picked Ionia as the scene of that game is a bit of
information that has vanished in the mists of antiquity. Garvin's feat was all
the more wonderful because in those days - it was the year of the National
League - baseball was just beginning to develop players of skill and science,
and big scores were still the rule. Such scores at 106 - 21, 113-26, 90-48, 62
-37 were by no means uncommon.
That year of 1876 was remarkable for other developments in baseball besides the
playing of the first no - hit pastime and the inaugural of the National League.
It was during that annum that Arthur Cummings originated the curve - a delivery
that had been called impossible by many highbrows. Cummings twirled for the
Brooklyn Stars, and used the under hand delivery that was universal at this
period of the game. The honor of originating the bender has been claimed for
Terry Larkin and Bobby Matthews, but Cummings is generally acknowledged as the
pioneer.
The first drop ball was probably pitched by Eddie Kent, of the Hudson N.Y. club
in 1878, but that delivery was perfected by Tim Keefe of New York and Buffington
of Boston.  The latter, by the way was the first great southpaw in the history
of the game, and his puzzling drop ball which was largely responsible for
Boston's pennant winning race of 1888.

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