Dean Chance

• Born in Wooster, OH on June 1, 1941 (a good summer for baseball).
  
  
• Posted 52-1 record at Northwestern High School in Wayne, OH. He pitched 17 no-hitters in high school, including eight consecutive.
  
  
• September 10, 1962: An eighth-inning single by Zoilo Versalles was the Twins’ only hit as Angels rookie Chance one-hit his future club.
  
  
• Best major league season came with the Angels in 1964 (age 23), when he ran away with the Cy Young Award.
  • 20-9 (1st in AL)
  • 1.65 ERA (1st in MLB)
  • 11 shutouts (1st in MLB)
  • 278.1 innings (1st in AL — Drysdale led majors with 321.1 innings!)
  • 0.2 home runs allowed per nine innings (1st in MLB)
  • 9.4 WAR (1st in AL)
  • All-Star
    
    
• December 2, 1966: The Twins acquired Chance from the Angels along with Jackie Hernandez in exchange for Jimmie Hall, Don Mincher, and Pete Cimino. Hall and Mincher hit 174 home runs for the Twins between 1963 and ’66. Hall accounted for 98 of those. His 33 homers in 1963 broke Ted Williams’ American League record for first-year players (31 in ’39).
  
  
• April 19–July 23, 1967: Chance went on the most futile hitting streak in Twins history, going 0-for-52 with 35 strikeouts.
  
  
• August 6, 1967: Chance pitched a rain-shortened five-inning perfect game against the Red Sox at Met Stadium. Though Major League Baseball considers a game official after five innings, in 1991 MLB dictated that a pitcher only gets credit for a no-hitter if the game goes the full nine innings. This rule was enacted retroactively, and, therefore, Chance and 35 other pitchers had no-hitters wiped from the record books.
  
  
• August 25, 1967: In the second game of a doubleheader in Cleveland, Dean Chance pitched the second no-hitter in Twins history.

Interestingly, Cleveland led the game 1-0 with one out in the bottom of the first. Chance walked the first two batters of the game before getting a strikeout for the first out. Cleveland’s cleanup hitter reached on an error to load the bases. Chance then unleashed a wild pitch, allowing Cleveland to score without the benefit of a hit. Chance issued five walks while striking out eight in the 2-1 Twins win.

The Twins would not have another no-hitter until Scott Erickson pitched one in 1994.

• 1967 — Chance won 20 games in his first season in Minnesota, making his second All-Star team while posting a 5.9 WAR.
  • Led American League with 39 starts, 18 complete games, and 283.2 innings pitched.
    
    
• April 10, 1968: Chance pitched a four-hit shutout, and Harmon Killebrew and Bob Allison hit solo home runs off former teammate Camilo Pascual for a 2-0 Twins win on Opening Day in Washington.
  
  
• 1968 — Though he wasn’t rewarded with an All-Star selection, 1968 was arguably Chance’s second-best season, posting a 16-16 record with his second-best ERA of 2.53, second-best WAR of 6.2, career-low 0.983 WHIP, and career-high 292 innings pitched.
  
  
• December 10, 1969: After a rough season in which he only pitched 88.1 innings, Chance was packaged with Ted Uhlaender, Graig Nettles, and Bob Miller and sent to Cleveland for Luis Tiant and Stan Williams.

Nettles went on to hit 390 home runs—including a league leading 32 with the Yankees in 1976—and made six All-Star teams.

The Twins released Tiant after one season. He eventually signed with the Red Sox where he had three 20-win seasons.

Read Chance’s SABR Bio by Tom Nahigian: SABR.org/bioproj…

See Chance’s page on Baseball Reference: Baseball-Reference.com/players…

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