Mike Celizic

No-hitters are always special, no matter who throws them. But when a kid with electric stuff throws one at the beginning of his career, it’s more than special. It’s magic.

So lay that label on the Tigers’ Justin Verlander today — magic. He’s just 24 years old and in his second season in the big leagues. Last year’s AL Rookie of the Year, when he was 17-9 for the league champions, he’s got a big curve, a good change and a fastball that can hit triple digits on the radar gun.

Yet, until Tuesday night with the Brewers in town, Verlander hasn’t really gotten the press that other kids with similar stuff have had. Maybe it’s because he’s in Detroit, which doesn’t get in a week the media that the Yankees draw for an off-day workout. And maybe part of it is because he pitches for the Tigers, who, until their wonderful run last year, had been as anonymous a team as Kansas City.

Whatever the reason, he hadn’t been ballyhooed as a savior as both Kerry Wood and Mark Prior were in Chicago. Nor has he been hailed from coast to coast as a phenom the way Dwight Gooden, Tom Seaver and Roger Clemens once were in New York and Boston. Networks haven’t reworked their schedules to get him on national television, the way they did once upon a time for Fernando Valenzuela.

Oh, people knew he was good. But as hard as he throws, he didn’t strike out batters by the score, as Wood and Clemens have done. Last year, in 186 innings, he struck out 124 hitters — just six for every nine innings pitched. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as a pitcher wins, but to get the hype, your fastball has to have the hop. It’s power we worship, and nothing says power for a pitcher like strikeouts.

And that was the best part of what Verlander did Tuesday night. He rang up 12 Brewers, including two in the first inning and two in the ninth. The kid with power stuff pitched a power game.

He’s 7-2 now, but his record should be a lot better. He didn’t give up an earned run in either of his first two starts of the year, and got no-decisions in both. For the month, he had five starts, a 2.79 ERA, due mostly to one bad game, and went into May with just a 1-1 record. With a little luck, he’d have 10 victories already.

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Even so, he’s tied for second in the AL in victories, two behind leaders Josh Beckett, John Lackey and C.C. Sabathia. His ERA of 2.79 — he has not given up a run this month in two starts — is a couple of hundredths out of the league’s top five.

Last year, Verlander was seventh in the league Cy Young balloting. The no-hitter doesn’t make him the favorite yet this year, but it’s a sign that he’s ready to contend seriously for that award.

What’s different is that he’ll no longer be doing it under the radar. The no-hitter lifted him from the ranks of talented kids to stars-in-the-making.

All eyes will be on his next start, seeing if he can do what no one has done since Johnny Vander Meer in 1938, pitch back-to-back no-hitters.

Verlander isn’t the youngest to pitch a no-hitter. Vida Blue was 21 and officially a rookie when he became the youngest American Leaguer to do it.

In the National League, Amos Rusie threw one at the age of 20 way back in 1891.

The important thing is he has one, and he has it young — at the same age that Roger Clemens went 24-4 and won his first Cy Young Award. Clemens always had the power — he struck out 20 in a game not once but twice — but he’s never thrown a no-hitter.

Tom Seaver doesn’t have one; in fact, no New York Met has ever thrown one.

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Ron Guidry never threw one. Wood and Prior haven’t done it. Greg Maddux hasn’t, nor has Pedro Martinez. Curt Schilling came within one out just last week, but couldn’t nail it down.

There’s always luck involved, and Verlander was helped by several terrific plays by his defense. But for the most part, he made his own luck. Of the 27 outs, 12 were Ks and only one ball — the last out of the game — carried to the outfield.

That’s some serious pitching by a tremendous young talent. Nobody had talked about him before Tuesday night the way they once talked about Gooden, Clemens, Wood and Prior. But they will now.