1. This year, the Cubs have be on both sides of a No-No. Name the last team to be no-hit and thrown a no-hitter in the same season. (The order of the no-no does not matter... You can not no-hit then throw one, or throw one then no-hit...)

2. Name the last pitcher to have thrown the last No-No of a season, and <THEN> throw the first No-No of the next season.

3. Dodgers was no-hit by Houston on August 21st, and then by Chicago Cubs on the 30th, (9-days, or 10. I don't care).

Anyway, I want to Google that baseball trivia, but won't (I promise). But I'll do some guessing anyway:

1. Phillies or Dodgers.

2. Koufax?

<Like father, like son. Ken Griffey and Ken Griffey Jr. became the first father-son duo to play on the same team (Mariners), 25 years ago today. They both singled in the first inning.>

<1>. On May 25, 2014 LAD (J. Beckett) no hit the Phillies, and then Sept 1 2014, four PHI pitchers combined to no hit ATL. The starting pitcher for PHI that day? Some guy named Cole Hamels.

Who would throw one all by hisself on July 25, 2015 vs Cubs.

For none-team effort category, you have to go alllllll the way back to 2012. On Apr 21 2012 Philip Humber (ChiSox) no hit the Seattle Mariners, then on August 15, 2012 Felix Hernandex no-hit the Rays.

(In between, Seattle as a team no-hit LAD on June 8th, 2012, partial credit to <penguincw>.)

<2>. Homer Bailey, Cincinnati Reds. On Sept. 28, 2012 he threw the last no-no of that season (PIT). Then on July 2, 2013, he threw the first no-no of that season (SFG).

As a side note, N. Ryan did it too, Sept 28, 1974 and then Jun 1, 1975.

S. Koufax is a very good guess, he had a no-no in June 1962, and he threw the first no-no of 1963 (May 11), but unfortunately, Bill Monbouquette and Jack Kralick got in the way there.

<3>. Earlier this year when the Cubs got no-hit, <Travis Bickle> lamented that Cubs held/had the longest stretch of being no-hit. So, which team still holds the record of the 'reverse' feat?

On Sept 4, 1923, Sad Sam Jones (NYY) no hit the Philadelphia Athletics, then on Sept 7th 1923 Howard Ehmke (BoSox) held the same Phil Athletics hitless. Shortest days, a record still to this day.

But them Dodgers may break that tonight, as they face them SFG & Jake Peavy, heck, Peavy may throw a perfect game!

< Also, for sheets and giggles, everyone should go to stubhub.com and check out the price for LAA-OAK Sept 1 game, section 126 to 129 >

I checked it out, but don't get it.

$14.00 for field level seats? Yesterday when I posted that comment, there were $12.00 seats in row 7, section 128.

<20 years ago today, Ripkin Jr. broke the Ironman record.>

In a separate note:

<M. Machado of Baltimore have the current MLB streak of longest games played, at 131 games. He will break Ripken's record in 2031.>

I finally read "Moneyball" and I don't know when I've read a more infuriating book. I'm mor frustrated with writer Lewis than GM Beane, but there's plenty of both. Can't be sure Lewis' portrait of Beane's raging egomania is accurate.

There's certainly a lot of good stuff in the book, including the focus on Kevin Youkilis as a potential star that nobody outside the A's recognized.

But Beane is presented as a visionary and everyone else as a dummy. The scouts are portrayed as intransigent blind men. I'm sure they had their shortcomings (judging by look rather than results, preference for high school players), but it's hard to believe they had no ability to judge players. Manager Art Howe is a puppet with no power. Earl Weaver, who followed a similar philosophy, is never mentioned.

There's a long section on Bill James, but it's all in service of building up the Beane theories of baseball. Most of what I like about James' writing is ignored. The book focused 90% on batting, and on on-base percentage, virtually ignoring power. Sure, obp is important and undervalued in 2002, but it's not power counts as well.

The book claims Beane built a good offense with a tiny budget. Forget that he had Chavez and Tejada, both players who had come from the team's minor league system. And they were drafted by the old-line scouts who Lewis and Tejada constantly denigrate. And neither is an example of the high on-base offense Beane favors.

The book never recognizes Tejada as a good hitter, only an impatient one, and acknowledges Chavez is really good (mentions him for the first time) on about page 300.

And did the A's win 103 games because of the great offense Beane put together? The team scored 800 runs, 8th in the American League. Average at best.

And opponents scored 654 runs, the second-fewest in the league. So the team's success is more pitching/defense than offense.

Of course it's possible Beane's personnel moves made the team into an average offense rather than a deficient one, allowing the team to win with its great pitching. But Lewis doesn't write it that way.

In fact he first mentions the excellent starting pitching on p. 221, and even then he implies that was luck, as Hudson and Mulder got much better after being drafted. Zito was the only drafted high as a matter of good scouting.

Near the end of the book he finally looks at one of the pitchers. Hudson? Mulder? Zito? No, submarining middle reliever Chad Bradford! Bradford fits the main theme of the book, a good pitcher who other teams didn't think was any good. (The movie was worse. It never mentioned the great pitching staff at all.)

And then there's the focus on controlling the strike zone, not swinging at bad pitches. We've all played baseball, right? It's not easy, and the criticism of Tejada and the rest who swing too often doesn't take that into consideration. (And any psychological effect from taking so many pitches, taking away aggressiveness, is never examined. Maybe it doesn't exist but it should have been looked at.)

Who watched Arrieta's no-hitter? You're going to tell Dodger hitters they should have swung only at strikes and laid off the balls in the dirt? Those pitches came in at the knees and it was tough to tell if they were going to dive down or not. In the ninth a guy took a perfect strike three on a fastball at the knees. He thought it was going to sink below the zone.

Finally, neither Lewis nor the Beane portrayed by Lewis gives the slightest consideration to psychological/intangible factors such as team leadership or the confidence pitchers may get from a strong defense. Maybe they don't matter or don't exist, but again, they needed to be addressed.

When Beane was about to take the Boston GM job, he said he would get rid of Varitek right away. Varitek became the emotional heart of the Sox championship teams a couple of years later. Anybody think they would have won two Series without him? (Plus Beane would never have had a Dave Roberts on his roster.)

There's a lot of good stuff in the book. Lewis is a good writer. In particular I liked the idea that pitchers need to be evaluated on results rather than what their pitches look like. (The portrait of Jamie Moyer is great.) But it's so biased, with such a narrow focus on waiting for the right pitch, that it drove me nuts.

Okay, okay. I'm kidding...

But it does show a few things, the book is non-fiction, materials presented are true. When less knowledgeable readers are introduced to the book, immediate reactions will be "Wow, that guy is freakin' genius!!"

Same thing when I read various materials on WWII, it is rather unfortunate that I have not read many books written by German authors (translated, as I know not a word of German).