No-hit history now eluding only trio of teams

It took Colorado less than two weeks into its 18th season. Ubaldo Jimenez put the Rockies on the no-hit map with his Saturday night gem in Atlanta.

But two of the oldest expansion teams in the National League are still waiting for their first no-hitters.

The San Diego Padres, born in 1969, are in their 42nd season of waiting. Even more intriguing, considering their rich legacy on the mound, are the New York Mets, who 49 seasons into it are still a no-show in no-nos.

Those are two of only three Major League teams that have never had a pitcher navigate nine innings without allowing a hit.

The other club still waiting is Tampa Bay, but the Rays are only 13 years young.

On the other side of history, each of the 30 big league clubs has been no-hit.

In the post-expansion era, the Padres and the Mets have been among the most frequent victims. San Diego has been held hitless seven times, and New York six times.

Although no Mets pitcher has hurled a no-hitter, their longtime home was not exempt from that singular moment when a starting pitcher bears down looking for out No. 27.

Philadelphia's Jim Bunning (1964, his perfect game) and Pittsburgh's Bob Moose (1969) both pitched no-hitters before Shea Stadium's 45-year run ended with last year's dedication of Citi Field.

So in the annals of no-hitters, one of the biggest oddities still is the fact that one was never pitched in Pittsburgh's Forbes Field. The oldest park in the Major Leagues at the time, it finally gave way in the middle of the 1970 season to Three Rivers Stadium. Forbes Field was the scene of thousands of games since its 1909 opening, none of them hitless.

As if to dramatize the challenge to pitchers of Forbes Field's expansive outfield, the Bucs' Nick Maddox did pitch a no-hitter shortly before the team moved into that park -- on Sept. 7, 1907, against the Dodgers.

And shortly after the wrecking ball found Forbes Field, Bob Gibson pitched a no-hitter in Pittsburgh: His Aug. 14, 1971 gem against the Pirates came in only the 91st game played in Three Rivers Stadium.