Rocket Ron and The Twenty-Seven K’s in Bristol

Legendary baseball executive Branch Rickey once said: “There have only been two young pitchers I was certain were destined for greatness, simply because they had the meanest fastball a batter can face. One of those boys was Dizzy Dean. The other is (Ron) Necciai.”

Dean’s statistics speak for themselves, a 150-83 record, career 3.02 ERA while logging just under 2000 innings on the mound for three teams. His performance on the mound earned him an MVP award and four all-star selections. After he was finished, Dean had a plaque with his name on it put in Cooperstown.

Necciai’s statistics were different. He was 1-6 over his career with an ERA over 7, while appearing in 12 career games with the Pirates. So what happened to the pitcher Branch Rickey said was “harder to hit” then Dean? Like many pitchers, it was arm problems that cut the career short of one of the finest arms baseball had ever seen.

To see the greatness of Ron Necciai, you have to go back to May 13th, 1952, when Necciai, signed by Rickey’s new team, the Pirates, was starting a game that night for the Bristol Twins of the Class D Appalachian League. Their opponent, the Welsh Miners, were about to be on the wrong side of history.

Necciai had been phenomenal in his previous three appearances. He had struck out 20 and 19 in back-to-back wins for Bristol. Then, in his last start before this night, he had come in relief against Johnson City with the bases loaded in the seventh and struck out three batters in order. He then got the next eight batters to set a minor league record for sitting eleven players down one after the other.

So why was Necciai even in the minor leagues? The chance of him making the Pirates squad back in April wasn’t all that slim. However, Necciai battled terrible stomach ulcers his entire career. They kicked up horribly during spring training and he was sent down to Bristol for medical rehab to begin the 1952 season.

The game started off amazingly for Necciai, who faced nine Welsh batters in the first three innings, striking every single one of them out. In fourth inning, the Miners, knowing hits would be at a premium on this night, attempted to bunt, but still could not hit nor, in some cases, even touch the ball.

But the Miners’ kept swinging through third strikes. Or they stood up at the plate, frozen as an icicle, while the umpire rang them up for another strikeout, a backwards “K” on the scorecard. Through six innings, Necciai had 17 strikeouts, 20 through seven and 23 through eight; all this coming while Necciai was tossing a no-hitter.

“Rocket Ron” struck out the first two batters to enter the box in the ninth, giving him a whopping 25 for the night. He then struck out the next batter on his ever-bending curveball that not even his catcher, Harry Dunlop, could handle. The batter reached on a passed ball, but all that did was allow Necciai the chance to strike out one more batter.

He did.

A no-hitter is quite the accomplishment. But even that had to take a backseat to the 27 batters Necciai struck out that game. Only one Welsh batter, Bob Ganung, put the ball in play, grounding out to the second baseman. Only three reached base; one drew four balls, Necciai hit another, and there was the one hitter who reached on a passed ball in the ninth. It was a masterful performance, one that hasn’t been matched, and one can only wonder if it will ever be matched.

After the start, Necciai had already gotten a taste of stardom, despite playing in the Class D minors. The Sporting News had done a feature story on him and word of his performance spread quickly, and when he made his next and final start in Bristol, he would pitch to an overflow crowd of over 5,000 spectators. He didn’t disappoint them, pitching a two-hitter and striking out 24 hitters.

Necciai’s final stats for Bristol were amazing. He fanned 109 batters in just 42 innings of work, going 4-0 with a microscopic ERA of 0.42. Rocket Ron was given a promotion quickly to the Pirates’ Carolina League (Class B) affiliate in Burlington. He put up astounding numbers, striking 172 batters out over 136 innings with an ERA of 1.57. Burlington’s offense was so dismal that Necciai’s record was 7-9.

Rickey finally summoned the magical right-hander to Pittsburgh on August 10th of that year. He won his first and only start on the 24th, a 4-3 victory over the Boston Braves. Despite finishing the year 1-6, with an ERA of 7.02, Necciai showed brilliance in 1952 for Pittsburgh and the team was excited to see what Rocket Ron would do in a full season.

However, in January ’53, the Army came calling, drafting Necciai to serve in Korea. Despite many expert medical professionals saying Necciai had severe stomach ulcers which would prevent him from serving his country, Necciai was drafted. However, Rocket Ron spent a majority of his time in a military hospital, unable to hold any food down due to his ulcers. He was discharged later that April, missing the entire spring training.

When Necciai returned to throw a baseball though, his rocket right arm wasn’t the same. It was sore and only got worse. As Necciai himself would later put it, “Back then, when a pitcher hurt his arm, it was over.”

He pitched six games for Burlington in 1953 before taking the rest of the season and 1954 off to rest his arm. He tried once more briefly in 1955 before deciding to walk off the mound for the last time. Rickey offered Necciai a baseball-capacity job with the Pirates but Necciai politely declined. He was done at the tender age of 23.

It was hard to say how Ron Necciai’s career would have turned out. Maybe he would have flamed out in the major leagues. Or maybe he would have a plaque in Cooperstown next to Dizzy Dean’s, just the way Branch Rickey envisioned it. The truth is, we will never find out. However, his name will always be etched into the baseball record books for what he did on that May evening in 1952.