A no-hitter, while not as mythical as a perfect game, is still a tremendous achievement for a pitcher. More than 200,000 Major League Baseball games have been played since 1876 and, only about 300 have ended with a zero in a team’s hit column.
With those numbers in mind, the year 1990 signaled a sort of revolution in the no-hitter’s history. A season that would come to be known as the “Year of the No-Hitter” featured seven in total, from Nolan Ryan’s sixth career no-no to Dave Stewart and Fernando Valenzuela each throwing one on June 29.
Since then, the magic number of seven no-hitters has been matched three more times in 1991, 2012 and 2015.
So on Nov. 11, 1990, it was fitting that the final game of the calendar year for major leaguers showcased one more dominant stroke from the mound. In front of 56,000 fans at the Tokyo Dome, Chuck Finley and Randy Johnson combined to no-hit a team of Japanese All-Stars in a 5-0 win.