A Hitter’s Nightmare : Ankersen Led Mater Dei to 1957 Title Game With Five No-Hitters

You won’t find the name Anthony Ankersen among the top world newsmakers of 1957. He was a senior at Mater Dei High, a member of one of the school’s first graduating classes.

But in 1957, Ankersen performed a feat that has never been equaled in Southern Section sports history.

Ankersen pitched five no-hitters in leading the Monarchs to the section’s lower-division championship game. He won 17 of 19 games that year, and also pitched a two-hitter, two three-hitters and four four-hitters.

For one season he was as dominant as any Orange County high school pitcher has ever been, from Walter Johnson to Jaret Wright.

Ankersen, 56, who lives in Irvine and has worked the last 34 years in Buena Park with the county’s probation department, was one of the area’s top athletes in the 1950s. There wasn’t a sport--football, basketball, baseball or track--at which he didn’t excel.

“Athletically things came easy to me,” Ankersen said.

But it was in baseball that Ankersen set a standard that still stands nearly 40 years later.

His amazing streak began March 11 against Bellflower Christian. Ankersen walked five and struck out 17 in a 6-0 victory. What made it even more impressive was it was Ankersen’s first baseball game of the season. He was a guard on the Mater Dei basketball team, which had lost in the playoffs a couple of nights before.

“It was a fluke because I had not thrown a baseball at all,” Ankersen said. “We had finished the basketball season on Saturday, we went out to loosen up on Monday, and I pitched on Tuesday.”

Baseball Coach Dick Coury--who went on to further acclaim on the football staffs of USC and the Rams--innocently uttered what became one of the great understatements when he said, “We can’t help but think that Tony is going to have a wonderful year.”

Nobody knew just how wonderful.

His second no-hitter came two weeks later, when he beat San Gabriel Mission, 3-0. Ankersen struck out 12 and walked five, and drove in one of the runs with a single.

He pitched two more no-hitters in April. The first was April 5 as Mater Dei defeated La Canada St. Francis, 8-0. “Terrible Tony,” as he was now being called, might have been at his most overpowering, striking out 14 and walking only one. He also hit a batter. The closest St. Francis came to a hit was a drive to center by John Miller that Pete Aguirre--after a long run--dropped for an error.

It was Ankersen’s ninth consecutive victory.

No. 4 on April 12 against San Pedro Mary Star was a struggle. Although Mater Dei won, 7-2, Ankersen walked seven (along with 12 strikeouts), which got Mary Star its two runs. But no hits.

Yet as his magical season unfolded, Ankersen did not feel invincible.

“Basically I felt I would have a real good game and not give up many hits,” Ankersen said. “I never thought I’d throw a no-hitter every time; they just happened. I’d get good fielding and I usually had a large number of strikeouts. That was the secret; if I had a large number of strikeouts, I could throw a no-hitter.”

Those strikeouts were made with a great fastball Ankersen could make rise and sink. He had a sharp curve and an average changeup he threw to keep batters honest, but it was pure heat that separated Ankersen from the pack.

Robert Webber, his catcher that season, said the popping sound Ankersen’s ball made when it hit his mitt also intimidated hitters.

“I could catch it so it sounded like a cannon shot,” Webber said. “Tony was very overpowering--just an awesome fastball. I couldn’t tell you the speed, but he was as fast as anybody I can recall seeing or catching.

“What also made him impressive was he would let a ball get away now and then, so the hitters never got too comfortable at the plate.”

Ankersen laughed when asked if such lapses were by design. “I had fair control, enough that I could throw strikes. But I don’t think it was good enough that I could just move guys off the plate when I wanted to. I just threw hard; that’s just what I did.”

The last no-hitter, in May, was the most important--a 15-0 pounding of St. John Vianney that clinched the third Parochial League title Mater Dei won that year (the others were in football and basketball). Ankersen walked six and hit one but struck out nine. He also scored four runs, tripled, and walked twice in a game, which was called after five innings.

Mater Dei would make it to the championship game against Santa Maria. But rains delayed the game 10 days. When it was finally played, Ankersen was not sharp--giving up seven hits, walking six and striking out eight in nine innings--and the Monarchs lost, 9-7.

The loss, though, did not detract from the brilliance of Ankersen’s season: 17-2, with 210 strikeouts and only 18 earned runs in 119 innings. The strikeout total is still fifth on the section’s all-time list for a season.

And, of course, no Orange County pitcher has yet approached five no-hitters in one season.

Can it ever be duplicated? Or surpassed?

“I think so,” Ankersen said. “There’s someone out there who could do it. It would be harder now than when I did it; there are a lot more players, better coaching and more emphasis on the specialties of baseball.

“Most of the people who played when I was in high school played numerous other sports. Baseball was something you went to from something else. There were very few people I knew, even the good baseball players, who just played baseball.”

But there would be no major league baseball for Ankersen.

As a football player--and an All-Southern Section end in 1956, his junior year--Ankersen separated his right shoulder five times. None by itself was serious; collectively, though, they weakened his pitching arm.

“I wanted to go to college and if they had offered a baseball scholarship I probably would have just played baseball,” said Ankersen, who attended Oregon State. “I got offered football scholarships so I kept on playing football.

“When I was a junior, Bobby Webber’s father, who was a part-time coach for Coury, tried to convince me not to play football because of the potential he thought I had in baseball. By that time I had already separated my shoulder once.”

Ankersen signed with the Boston Red Sox, and was 10-1 as a reliever for the Sox’s Class D team in Alpine, Texas. A year later, he was out of the game--for good.

“The stamina had left my arm. I still had some velocity but it got tired quickly,” he said.

But Ankersen says he has no regrets.

“I had fun, and that’s about it. I got a shot at it and it was fun. There are still a lot of people who don’t get that.”