Andy Hawkins doesn't have to bring up his claim to fame as a Major League pitcher around the young players he now coaches with the Texas Rangers. This is the age of YouTube and iPhones, after all.

"It's just a matter of time because somebody figures it out and asks me," Hawkins said over the phone recently. "They always do. They always do."

And, when they do, he'll tell the story one more time, just like he has countless times over the past 25 years. He'll talk about how the Yankees were already 16 games under .500 when, on July 1, 1990, they showed up for their final game at old Comiskey Park in Chicago.

He'll remember how it was a perfect sunny Sunday afternoon. Maybe a little too sunny, actually, if you happened to be a professional baseball player trying to catch fly balls. And the wind?

It was so windy that a young slugger for the White Sox named Sammy Sosa "hit a ball so hard it probably would have gone 500 feet," Hawkins remembered, but it somehow stayed in the park and landed safely in the glove belonging to a rookie left fielder named Jim Leyritz.

"If it had not been for the wind he would have hit a home run," Hawkins said, "and this whole thing would never have been talked about."

Instead, this whole thing — one of the most painful no-hitters in Major League history — has followed Hawkins his entire life.

All sports fans have moments that shape how they view the games we love. I was recent high school graduate that summer, watching that game from the sofa in my parents' living room, and what happened to poor Andy Hawkins that day drove home an important point that has stayed with me ever since.

That, sometimes, the games we love don't love us back.

"It's my no-hitter," said Hawkins, who graciously agreed to relive it one more time. "It wasn't perfect. It was never what I expected it to be or what I envisioned or dreamed about. I had to accept it for what it is, you know?"

Then again, if it was perfect it already might have been lost to history. Instead, it was an unforgettable moment for a pitcher who was having a forgettable season. Hawkins was 1-4 with a 6.49 ERA in 12 starts, and just three weeks earlier, the Yankees had nearly released him.

Few could have seen a performance like this coming, Hawkins included. He became aware in the fourth or fifth inning that he hadn't allowed a hit because, he said, "There wasn't many times in my career when I looked up and saw no hits in my line." He had a few close calls — Leyritz saved him once with a sliding catch — but for the most part he was just cruising along.

The foreshadowing of the doom came courtesy of legendary Yankees broadcaster Phil Rizzuto. "I want to tell you, every fly ball is an adventure out there," the Scooter said as, twice in the seventh inning, second baseman Steve Sax had to make last-second adjustments to grab routine popups.

Still, there were two outs in the eighth inning when Sosa hit a sharp grounder to Yankees third baseman Mike Blowers. He tried to make a backhanded stop but the ball hit his glove and fell to the ground. It was ruled a hit, which sent the Yankees dugout into a near revolt.

Then, E-5 flashed on the scoreboard. Hawkins had a reprieve, but one that would not last long. He walked Ozzie Guillen and Lance Johnson to load the bases, which brought Robin Ventura to the plate.

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"Hey!" Rizzuto said in relief as Ventura lifted a fly ball to left field, but his tone quickly turned to concern. "Going back Leyritz - DON'T FALL!"

Leyritz fell. The ball bounce off his glove. Everyone scored, and for good measure, right fielder Jesse Barfield dropped the next fly ball. "Holy cow, wheels coming off here," Scooter yelped. It was 4-0.



"Leyritz was distraught about it in the dugout, and I went over and told him right there in the dugout, 'Hey, man, keep your head up. I know you did the best job you could do, and that's all you can do,'" Hawkins said.

"He felt terrible about it. Blowers felt terrible about it. Jesse Barfield was a Gold Glove outfielder. He stayed with that ball until it glanced off his glove, when a lot of guys would have bailed because they couldn't see it. He did everything he could to catch that ball and preserve my no-hitter and he took an error for his efforts."

When the Yankees made the final outs a half inning later, pitching coach Bill Connors shook Hawkins hand in the dugout and offered congratulations.

"It still counts?" Hawkins asked.

(For the record: It no longer does. While Hawkins said at the time that the no-hitter was something "that will never be taken away from me," baseball did exactly that the next year with a rule change that requires pitchers to work at least nine innings to be credited with the no-hitter.)

His teammates gave him a standing ovation when he entered the clubhouse. George Steinbrenner offered to buy him a Jeep Wrangler. He declined. Good Morning America and Late Night with David Letterman called, trying to book him as a guest. He also declined.

"I just wasn't into that," he said. "I didn't feel like I was representing myself at that point. Even when I was doing interviews on the field, I had trouble answer them. 'How do you feel about this?' Well, I don't know how I feel about it because I never thought of this kind of thing happening before."

It has happened twice since, for the record. Matt Young lost an eight-inning no-hitter two years later for the Red Sox, while Jered Weaver and Jose Arredondo combined to lose one for the Angels in 2008. In some ways, what Hawkins did in his next start is even more rare: He pitched 11 2/3 innings ... and lost, 2-0, to the Twins.

"I don't know if anybody has done that since," Hawkins said, and he's right, no one has or probably ever will again. "So the two best starts of my life I had back to back and I lost them both."

It's a hard-luck story that, 25 years later, Andy Hawkins is still telling. It's only a matter of time before somebody figures out his claim to fame and asks him about it. They always do.

Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevePoliti. Find Steve on Facebook.