Remembering a Near No-Hitter, 17 Years Later

There’s a very messy cubby hole in my desk crammed with various pieces of baseball-related paper. It’s filled with things like the roster sheets from the international workouts where I saw Rafael Devers and Marcos Diplán, an Arizona Fall League lineup that included George Springer, Joc Pederson and Nick Castellanos, and various other ephemera. Why I hold on to this stuff is beyond me, but I was looking for something the other day and found an ancient wonder — the starting lineups for the April 29, 2004 Midwest League game between the Yankees’ Battle Creek team and the A’s Kane County club. The game was more than 17 years ago now, but I remember the day very well, as it featured left-hander Steven Bondurant taking a no-hitter into the ninth.

The discovery, and the recent rash of major league no-nos, led to an afternoon spent down an internet rabbit hole as I furiously tried to find a box score from the game (hat tip to Cory Schwartz at MLB for his assistance) and, ultimately, to me tracking down Bondurant himself. As it turns out, he also recalls that day quite well. “I remember it like it was yesterday,” he told me on the phone on Wednesday.

There’s a solid chance you’ve never heard of Bondurant. He never reached the major leagues, and pitched his last professional game in 2007. A 15th-round pick in the 2003 draft out of South Carolina, Bondurant wasn’t the type of pitcher who made a lot of prospect lists, as he was a fifth-year senior sign who rarely cracked the 90s with his fastball. He readily admits that in today’s power-driven game, he might not have even gotten the opportunity to play professional baseball. “I was 85-88 mph in college, if that. The A’s at the time were focused on production,” said Bondurant. “They didn’t go off being 6-foot-4, 230 and throwing 95. I was the Friday night guy at an SEC school, threw strikes and got outs, and I think that went a long way at the time.”

During Bondurant’s first full-season in 2004, he was one of the best pitchers in the Low-A Midwest League, putting up a 2.08 ERA over 21 starts with a sub-1.00 WHIP and 132 strikeouts against just 27 walks over 125.2 innings. He didn’t throw hard but he was left-handed, had a killer changeup, and could locate all of his pitches. That’s the kind of combination that can dominate at the lower levels, which he felt he needed to do. “It was my first full year, but I was already 24 and felt like I had to do something as soon as possible or it might be over for me,” said Bondurant. “I didn’t have time to develop.”

It was unseasonably warm on April 29, albeit windy and damp. In terms of watching prospects, I was there to see Eric Duncan, the Yankees’ 2003 first-round pick, Melky Cabrera, a hot bat in Battle Creek’s lineup generating some buzz, and an interesting right-hander starter named Tyler Clippard.

The game itself was over before it began, with Kane County putting up six in the first, knocking Clippard out of the game after two; they had a 14-0 lead after four innings. “It was a blowout, and it was raining, and we just wanted to get through the game,” recalled Bondurant.

But he kept throwing changeups, he kept missing bats, and he kept preventing hits. As the game got deeper, Bondurant’s biggest potential obstacle was not the Battle Creek lineup as much as it was the vagaries of Midwest League umpires and an Oakland player development system that adhered strictly to pitch counts.

“In the eighth inning, we’re up 17-0, the ump called ball four on a borderline pitch and out came [Kane County manager Dave] Joppie,” remembered Bondurant. “I think I’m done, but Joppie tells me he’s just waiting for the ump. So we’re just standing there and the ump finally comes to break it up and Joppie just says ‘You know what’s going on here, right? Why are you squeezing my guy?’”

Bondurant would get through that eighth inning with the no-hitter intact, but it would require Hoppie going above and beyond to keep him in the game. “I don’t think people know this,” laughed Bondurant. “But Joppie had to call Billy Beane to get approval for me to go out for the ninth because I was over 100 pitches.” Permission was granted, and history was almost made. “I got the first out and then Andrus [Elrod, older brother of Elvis] hit a little bleeder that went over my head, hit second base and trickled into the outfield.” Joppie came and got his starter. His final line: 8.1 IP, 1 H, 4 BB, 14 K. I was sitting behind home plate that day, and as he walked off the field, a scout noted than Bondurant had thrown nearly 60 changeups on the night. “It’s not quite a screwball, but it moves a lot,” said Bondurant of his best pitch. “It was my any-count, go-to pitch and that was an aggressive lineup.”

Bondurant says he was even better in his next start, “It was at Dayton and I took a perfect game into the seventh,” he recalled. His season-long performance earned a two-step jump to Double-A Midland late in the season. While he pitched well in his first start, he struggled from there, finishing with a 6.87 ERA in seven games as the ability to miss bats began to diminish at the upper levels. “In Low-A, you can make a mistake over the plate and there’s a good chance it’s just going to get fouled back,” assessed Bondurant. “In the Texas League, any mistake you made got punished.”

He’d make adjustments and put together a much better campaign in 2005 at Midland, but at the end of the year, the injuries, and severe ones at that, began. A late-season game at Corpus Christi was cancelled due to rain after Bondurant had already warmed up for the start. After a shower the weather suddenly cleared, and the clubs agreed to play the game after all. Bondurant was asked if he could still go. He said yes. “Around the fourth inning, my arm felt dead,” said Bondurant. “It didn’t hurt. It was just dead. The next day my arm was so sore. I never had arm issues in my career and it was just nothing I’d ever dealt with before.” He tried to pitch through it, but ultimately was shut down. An MRI revealed a torn labrum that would require surgery. “I don’t think it was any one pitch,” said Bondurant. “But I do think it was that outing.”

Along with the surgery came seven surgically implanted anchors to add stability to the joint. During his rehabilitation a few become detached, requiring a second clean-up procedure. Bondurant was never the same again. “I was still 88-90 mph, but it was a dead 88-90 mph,” he remembered. “I just didn’t have life or finish on any of my pitches.”

Following the 2007 draft, and now a 27-year-old scuffling at Triple-A, Bondurant didn’t survive the round of mid-season cuts required for the club to make room for all of their new signees. He heard from a couple of teams who had openings on their Double-A roster, but the constant battle to stay healthy had taken its toll both physically and mentally. “It just wasn’t fun,” said Bondurant. “I had to take Advil just to play catch. I was just drained by the injuries.”

Bondurant had graduated magnum cum laude from South Carolina with a double major in marketing and management before his college playing career was over. He used his early career offseasons to finish his masters degree in Human Resources. A life after baseball wasn’t going to be a problem in terms of finding work, and the end of Bondurant’s career left a bitter taste in his mouth. “I didn’t watch much baseball for a couple of years,” he said. “I wasn’t jealous to see my buddies on TV — I was excited for them. But the whole thing was tough to swallow.”

He had already done some offseason work at his college alma mater, and quickly took on a full-time gig at South Carolina in an academic advisory role before recently returning to his high school alma mater, holding the title of Director of Alumni Relations at Providence Day School in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he also serves as the pitching coach.

More than a decade since leaving professional baseball one level below the big leagues, Bondurant is no longer haunted by what could have been. “This brought back some great memories, and I have no regrets,” Bondurant surmised. “I had an awesome career.”