No Hit Loser - The Andy Hawkins Story

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Yankees pitcher Andy Hawkins pitches a no-hitter against the Chicago White Sox and somehow still loses. With two outs in the bottom of the 8th inning of a hitless beauty, Hawkins and the Yanks suddenly found themselves down 4-0 . An error by third baseman Mike Blowers allowed Sammy Sosa to beat out the throw to first. Hawkins followed that up with a pair of walks to Ozzie Guillen & Lance Johnson to load em up. A misplay of a Robin Ventura fly ball by left fielder Jim Leyritz allowed all three runs to score. Add another error and run, and it’s done. White Sox win! Andy lost his place in the No Hit club as well after MLB changed their definition of NO-NO, to say a pitcher must pitch a full 9 innings of hitless ball to get credit for it. Not 8. Bummer Dude.

June 23rd, 1988 NBA Expansion Draft

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June 23, 1988 - With the 1st selection in the NBA Expansion Draft the Miami Heat select F Arvid Kramer. Huh? Who? Kramer was originally selected out of tiny Augustana University all the way back in 1979 by the Utah Jazz. His last NBA Appearance was in 1980 when he barely broke a sweat in 8 games for the Denver Nuggets. So, why would the Heat spend the 1st selection on Arvid? Well they had a backroom deal in place with the Dallas Mavericks who hoped to hold onto three other unprotected players in the expansion draft. (Bill Wennington, Jim Farmer and Steve Alford) The Heat agreed to select Kramer # 1 in exchange for the Mavericks 1st round pick in 1988. (20th overall) He never played for the Heat.

With the 2nd selection the other newly hatched franchise, the Charlotte Hornets, selected shooting guard Dell Curry who had spent the previous season with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Miami would finish 15-67 while the Hornets fared slightly better at 20-62.

What's In Common?

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Wally Moon & John Montefusco both won the NL Rookie of the Year awards in their respective first seasons. 1954 for Wally & 1975 for ‘The Count’

What we’re looking for here at The Amazing Blaze Zine is what else do these two players have in common?

(Hint: It also occurred during their rookie season.)

Blaze Beginnings

Here’s a look at the initial note taking I took on the creation of this fiasco I’ve come up with known as The ‘Amazing’ Blaze Zine. If you can read it. I made these blank page journals out of my old CD covers from growing up & I’d carry them around jotting down ideas. Blaze somehow became one of them. It’s been fun. Thanks for following along..

I guess The Amazing Blaze Zine is my contribution to the ’Yestermania’ that’s going on these days. It really started as some kind of silly art project; a daily graphic exercise. Eventually morphing into my own ambiguous chronicle of sports history, in a sort of 8th grade book report fashion. Sports to me always had a built in connection to both aesthetics and interpersonal experiences. To Memories. Blaze has become a chance for me to go back and think about my life surroundings at the times of these random sporting events. Before judgements & responsibility came around. Recall family gatherings with everyone huddled around the TV watching the Big Game, or hanging with your buds trading cards in the dugout after baseball practice. Dig deeper into the 'Heroes' & 'Ghosts' of days gone by and to re-connect with my inner kid sports fan. 

Nirvana Rules!!

Back To Back MVP - Frank Thomas

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Frank Thomas won back to back AL MVP awards in 1993 & 1994. He was the first player to do so since Roger Maris did it back in 1960 & ‘61. Who knows what his numbers may have been had the 1994 season not been cut short by the Strike. In the 113 games played that year ‘Big Hurt’ was batting .353 with 38 Homers, 101 RBI’s & 106 runs!! Happy B-day Hurt!!

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