This is a little research I did on the most unlikely no-hitter ever pitched during the barrage of hitless games earlier this year...
Everyone is familiar with Jackie Robinson, and serious baseball fans know of Fleet Walker (the last recognized African American to play big league baseball in the 19th century). However, the "color barrier" was never a well-defined line. During the 63 years between Walker and Robinson, there were several men of African American descent, mixed race or, especially for those from the Caribbean, light enough complexion to pass as white or "Cuban" and play on a major league field. If you could pass, you could play, and if no one asked, there was no benefit in telling.
Charles "Bumpus" Jones, a Cedarville, Ohio native who enjoyed one brief moment as the talk of baseball, was most likely one of those men. His father's identity was never on record, but he and his mother's family lived in mixed neighborhoods and were listed as mulatto in multiple census records. The family was also said to have Native American ancestry. When Bumpus was about four, his mother married a man whose family was described as black or colored. Years later, folks around Cedarville recalled Bumpus as a black man, but there's no evidence his race was disputed during his days in the game. Regardless, his skin tone was not what put Bumpus in the record books.
Jones had made a name for himself as an arm for hire on the sandlots around southwestern Ohio and spent the first two summers of the 1890s pitching and dominating two minor leagues in Illinois and the Pacific Northwest. He also pitched for a minor league team in Atlanta until its disbandment brought Bumpus home to Ohio in September 1892. In the 1800s, even National League teams would play semipro town teams on their off-days for a share of the gate, and when the Cincinnati Reds came to Wilmington for a game, the locals added Jones to bolster their roster. He spent the first six innings in the outfield, but then took the mound and impressed Cincinnati's manager Charles Comiskey so much the Reds immediately signed him to a contract.
Cincinnati played the last game of the regular season against Pittsburgh on October 15, 1892, and Comiskey handed the ball to his new find. Jones started his major league debut shakily by walking the first two batters he faced. However, the next batter bunted into a double-play when Patsy Donovan was thrown out at the plate making a reckless attempt to score from second base. Jones was wild but effective for the next two innings although he allowed a run in the third on a walk, stolen base and error. He then settled in and retired the final 19 batters in a row. He'd walked four, but Pittsburgh failed to get a hit against the rookie in a 7-1 Cincinnati victory. Jones was – and still is – the only pitcher to throw a 9-inning no-hitter in his first major league appearance and became a folk hero during the winter of 1892-93.
If you're currently a major league fan, the rest of this might start to sound familiar. In 1881 the pitching distance to the plate had been set at fifty feet, but in 1884 the overhand pitch was legalized. For the next eight years pitching grew in dominance, and people were complaining the game was being ruined by climbing strikeout rates and a lack of action in the field. In 1892 the National League once again stood alone in its dominance, as its major league rival, the American Association, had folded after the previous season. The concentration of talent to twelve National League pitching staffs hurt offense even more, and brought the issue to a head. Prior to the 1893 season, by a vote of 9-3, the league moved the pitching distance to the 60'6" we still know today. Specifically, the measurement changed from the back line of the defunct pitcher's box to the placement of a pitcher's rubber, which meant the distance from the average release point to the plate changed by about five feet. Still, this was enough to instantly and fundamentally change pitching and revive scoring.
Whether it was the change in distance or Bumpus Jones simply wasn't the legendary talent he'd looked like one October afternoon, the last person to pitch a gem from fifty feet was about to become nothing more than a trivia answer in baseball history. He struggled out of the gate in 1893, and after just three games was sent home to “get the kinks out of his arm”. In an era when pitchers were expected to finish what they started, he would complete just two of his six starts. Shortly after his return to the club, the Reds were enjoying a 14-0 lead over Louisville after three innings, so Comiskey decided to rest starter Icebox Chamberlain and give Jones another chance. Things did not go well for Jones, but Cincinnati won 30-12. Aside from his no-hitter, it would be the only major league game Jones ever won. He was released soon after with an ERA over 10.00. The Giants gave him one start but also released him after he walked 10 batters in 4 innings.
Jones went on to enjoy a successful minor league career over the next decade. He even picked up the victory in the first game ever played by the Cleveland team that would ascend to major league status and become the Indians, but he never threw another pitch in the majors. Of the 311 no-hitters ever thrown in the majors, baseball historian Bill James ranks Jones' accomplishment as the least likely to have happened. If he wasn't able to pass as white, it certainly wouldn't have.