The Ever Elusive No-No

Consider the following list of men:
Yo Terada
Aquilino "The Rat" Lobez
Luis Cardenas
Keishi Aoki
Jerry Bath
Juan "Ducky" Colinas
Chin "Missing Link" Chong
Jaime Costa
Fu-quan Su
Alfredo Coronilla

Now, contemplate what they have in common. The answer is simple really, this list of men is a small sample of men fortunate enough in their careers to do the unthinkable. These men, at one point in their careers, pitched no-hitters.

The no-hitter is one of the rarest of achievements in baseball, only slightly more common than the perfect game. In fact, in 10 years of WBH history, there have been a total of 28 no-no's and only one pitcher has been fortunate enough to accomplish this feat twice, Hector "Bonkers" Queme.

More interesting breakdowns of this phenomenon include:

• The United States leads the way with 8 of 28 no-hitters.
  
• Four leagues, Venezuela, Canada, Panama, and Mexico are still searching for their first.
• Four franchises have accomplished this feat twice or more, Detroit (who amazingly had both no-hitters in the same month!), Mao (who is one of two teams to throw no-hitters in two separate leagues), Mariel, and Baracoa (who leads all franchises with three no-hitters, all in separate leagues).
• The first no-hitter in league history was thrown by Aquilino Lobez of the Toledo Mudhens, on July 27th, 2007. He retired 10 via strikeout and only walked one man.
• The most recent no-hitter in league history was thrown by Seok-heung Yi of the Samsung Lions of Suwon on August 6th, 2015. He retired 12 via strikeout and only walked two.
  

In 2015, there were five no-hitters thrown around the hierarchy. A considerably large amount considering that the average over the 10-year span has be close to three. However, with respect to this, we really have to treat 2015, much like 2013 (a season where a standing record six no-hitters were thrown), as an off-year.

I invite your comments, questions, and suggestions for future blog entries.