Gardner Can’t Quite Reap What He Throws

Along about the seventh inning, press box denizens began hauling out their baseball record books.

The question: Who was the last opposing pitcher to come into the Dodgers’ home park stadium and pitch a no-hitter?

The answer: Johnny Vander Meer of the Reds, at Brooklyn, in 1938--for his second consecutive no-hitter.

Before 38,957 at Dodger Stadium, eight years ago tonight, Montreal’s Mark Gardner was mowing down the Dodgers . Unfortunately for him, Dodger pitchers were doing the same to his team.

Gardner, a onetime Fresno State pitcher, completed nine no-hit innings of a 0-0 game. Then, on Gardner’s third pitch of the 10th inning, Lenny Harris beat out a slow bouncer over the mound for the first Dodger hit.

Two pitches later, Eddie Murray lined a single to right, and Gardner was pulled.

Reliever Jeff Fassero then gave up a single to Darryl Strawberry, scoring Harris with the winning run.

Oddly, as it turned out, Dodger pitchers Orel Hershiser, Kevin Gross and Jay Howell gave up fewer hits, two, than the Expos allowed.

But the real winner was Dr. Frank Jobe, who’d performed shoulder surgery on Hershiser and Gardner in the previous year.

It was a frustrating finish for Gardner, who had given up 19 runs in the previous 21 1/3 innings he’d pitched against the Dodgers.

“I had a great game, but I don’t feel good about it,” he said.

“It was a great accomplishment, but it’s still a loss.”

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Also on this date: In 1952, at Helsinki, Bob Mathias won the Olympic decathlon for the second consecutive time. Mathias won the gold medal at the 1948 London Olympics at 17. . . . In 1964, before 55,294 at the Coliseum, an American men’s track team beat a team from the Soviet Union, 139-97, in part by winning every race except the race walk events. . . . In 1991, Los Angeles pro basketball pioneer Vito Guarino died at 77. Guarino promoted the city’s first NBA game, a 1959 Sports Arena exhibition game between the Philadelphia Warriors and the St. Louis Hawks.