Baseball, that statistics-mad enterprise, has served up its share of rare performances by individual players. Fifteen fielders have turned unassisted triple plays. Thirteen hitters have hit two grand slams in a game, including one, Fernando Tatis, who in April 1999 did so in the same inning, which may be the game’s most remarkable anomaly, though Don Larsen’s perfect game for the Yankees against the Dodgers in 1956 — the only no-hitter thrown in the World Series — is better known and better remembered.
No-hitters themselves are not all that uncommon. Almost 300 of them have been pitched in the big leagues, and even their famous subset, perfect games, has 23 entries.