James Rodney Richard got a little miffed with the fans at Cocoa Stadium Friday night, and didn't calm down until he had pitched an almost flawless no-hitter against the Daytona Beach Dodgers. The 6' 8" smoke-throwing righthander has been the favorite of the Cocoa fans all season, but he didn't like the idea of his hometown fans rooting for the other team. He had already watched his team lose a 2 - 1 thriller to the Dodgers in the first game of the doubleheader, so when the fans cheered the Dodgers at the start of the second game, Richard got riled up and tossed a 2 - 0 no-hitter for the Astros.

It was understandable for some of the 460 fans to root for the Dodgers, though, because one of Brevard County's favorite sons was pitching for them. Lefthander Randy Fairbanks, who made quite a name for himself as a high school and American Legion hurler at Satellite Beach before signing with the Dodgers last June, was making his only local appearance of the season.

Richard still didn't like his fans rooting against him, and long before the game ended, he had won them back by sending batter after batter back to the bench with his bat in his hand. The big fireballer faced only one over the minimum of 21 batters for a seven-inning game. He struck out 10 and walked only one, but two others reached on errors by shortstop Mario Freeman. Bob Long was safe on an error in the first inning, but was thrown out trying to steal. Ivan DeJesus walked on a 3-2 pitch in the third and was tagged out in a rundown. By the end of the sixth inning Richard had faced the minimum number of 18 batters.

The fans sensed the no-hitter and cheered lustily as Richard got the first two batters in the seventh. The tension mounted as Orlando Alvarez worked Richard to a 3-2 count. The Dodger leftfielder then hit a routine grounder at Freeman, but the Astro shortstop threw wide of the bag at first, forcing Richard to have to face cleanup batter Lee Robinson. Richard got Robinson to hit an easy grounder to third for the final out and his first no-hitter as a professional.    "

Daytona Beach Dodgers AB R H RBI John Gamble, 2b 3 0 0 0 Bob Long, rf 3 0 0 0 Orlando Alvarez, lf 3 0 0 0 Lee Robinson, c 3 0 0 0 Kara Hall, 3b 2 0 0 0 Randy Bayer, 1b 2 0 0 0 Jim Cardasis, cf 2 0 0 0 Ivan DeJesus, ss 1 0 0 0 Randal Fairbanks, p 1 0 0 0 Dick Dorsch, p 0 0 0 0 Dick Thompson, ph 1 0 0 0 Daytona Beach totals 21 0 0 0

Cocoa Astros AB R H RBI Mario Freeman, ss 3 0 0 0 Bob Shearer, 3b 3 1 1 0 Martin Boer, cf 2 1 0 0 Steve Gardner, 1b 3 0 2 1 Don McLaughlin, 2b 2 0 2 0 Jose Lopez, rf 2 0 0 0 Lew Brown, c 2 0 0 0 Anthony Sturdevant, lf JR Richard, p 2 0 0 0     Cocoa totals 35 4 9 4