May 2 Illinois History Minute

It’s May 2nd, the day that Columbia Pictures released the movie “Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling”, directed by, and starring Illinois native Richard Pryor. Pryor based the movie on his own turbulent life and filmed the childhood scenes on location in his hometown of Peoria.

On this day in 1917, Major League Baseball’s only double no-hitter occurred in Chicago. Fred Toney (Tooney?) pitched a no-hitter for the Cincinnati Reds, and the Chicago Cubs’ Jim “Hippo” Vaughn allowed two hits in the tenth. That still counted as a no-hitter until the rules were changed in the 1990s.