Rick Wise was raised in Portland, Oregon. In 1958, when he was 12 years old, his Rose City team went to the Little League World Series. Three years later, with more or less the same team, he went to the Babe Ruth World Series and pitched the second no-hitter in the history of that tournament.

Rick attended James Madison High School in Portland and helped lead the school to its first baseball state championship in 1963. He excelled in other sports as well, and was all-city in football and basketball and all-city and all-state in baseball.

As he got deeper into his high-school years, he became more aware of scouts visiting the household and talking with his parents. The Phillies signed the 17-year-old and he started his pro career at Class A Bakersfield in 1963, with a 2.63 ERA and striking out 98 in 65 innings. At the age of 18, he spent the 1964 season with the Phillies. His second start was quite an experience, as Philadelphia’s Jim Bunning threw a perfect game in the first game of a doubleheader and Rick started the second game.

The following year, 1965, the Phillies sent Rick down to polish his game in Triple-A ball, at the club’s Little Rock affiliate. Butr in September, on his 20th birthday, he went into the Army Reserve and it took him most of the way through baseball’s spring training in 1966. When Rick returned, he pitched in in AAA before being recalled to the big-league club in time for his first big-league start of the season. He appeared in at least 30 games, almost all as a starter, each of the next seven seasons.

Rick’s best year was 1971, his seventh season pitching for the Phillies. On June 23rd he threw a no-hitter against the Reds at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium. The final score was 4-0, and Rick, who was an excellent hitter, drove in three of the four runs with his two-run homer in the fifth and solo home run in the eighth. He’s the only player in major-league history to throw a no-hitter and hit two home runs in the same game.

After the season, he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for Steve Carlton and posted back-to-back 16-win seasons for the Cardinals in ’72 and ’73. He was also was the starting and winning pitcher in the 1973 All-Star Game. On June 13th, in 1973, he’d lost a shot at another no-hitter, in a game against the Reds when Joe Morgan singled with one out in the ninth.

But in late October he was traded again, this time going to the Red Sox along with outfielder Bernie Carbo in exchange for outfielder Reggie Smith and pitcher Ken Tatum.

Injury struck him for the first time in 1974. He tore a triceps muscle and that basically ruined his whole season.

The year after his injury, 1975, was an exceptional one. Rick led the Red Sox with 19 wins. At one point, he won nine games in a row as the Red Sox rolled toward the AL East division title.

On July 2nd he almost had a no-hitter again, pitching 8⅔ innings of no-hit ball against Milwaukee. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, he gave up a walk and then gave up the first hit of the game – a home run by George Scott.

Rick not only won 19 games during the regular season, but also won the clinching game of the ALCS, beating the A’s 5-3 in Oakland, holding them to six hits and two earned runs.

In the World Series, he started Game #3, and the Reds got to him the second time through the order. He was tagged for five earned runs in 4⅓ innings. The Red Sox eventually tied the game but the Reds won it in the bottom of the tenth after the controversial Ed Armbrister bunt.

He was the fourth Sox pitcher of the night in Game #6, and held the Reds scoreless in the top of the 12th. He never had to come out to throw the 13th, thanks to Carlton Fisk’s home run leading off the bottom of the 12th.

Rick pitched well in 1976 and 1977, but it wasn’t always the happiest Red Sox clubhouse. There was a rift between manager Don Zimmer and a number of players like Bill Lee, Bernie Carbo, and Ferguson Jenkins, known as the "Buffalo Heads". It was Zimmer’s way or no way.

At the very end of spring training 1978, Rick was packaged in a six-player trade, sent to Cleveland with Ted Cox, Bo Diaz, and Mike Paxton for Dennis Eckersley and Fred Kendall. It was the second time he had been traded for a future Hall of Famer. He’d requested a trade at the end of the 1977 season, after Zimmer had consigned him to bullpen work, but had enjoyed a very good spring training so was surprised at the timing.

Rick Wise won 188 major-league ballgames, was a two-time All-Star, threw a no-hitter (and barely missed three others), and was the winning pitcher in what many still say was the greatest baseball game ever played, Game Six of the 1975 World Series.