The All-Nighter

 Pawtucket 3, Rochester 2 (33 innings) 

 

No, that's not a typo. It's the final score of the longest professional baseball game of all time. It took two months to play.... Well, okay, it was suspended late and resumed two months later, but it probably felt like two months to the players and fans who spent the night at the ballpark. But don't panic, the story of this amazing game is considerably shorter. 



McCoy Stadium

It all started on April 18, 1981 at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The Rochester Red Wings were in town to play the Pawtucket Red Sox in an International League game. The Sox were the minor league AAA affiliate of the Boston Red Sox and the Red Wings were the Baltimore Orioles' AAA franchise. Both rosters had familiar names, including future Hall-of-Famers Cal Ripkin of Rochester and Pawtucket’s Wade Boggs, who along with teammates Marty Barrett, Rich Gedman, Bruce Hurst and Bobby Ojeda would play major roles for the Red Sox and the New York Mets in the unforgettable 1986 World Series.

It was very chilly and breezy, more conducive for football. At any rate, the evening began ominously. The game was scheduled to start at 7:05 PM but there was a problem with one of the supports for the stadium lights and the first pitch wasn’t delivered until 8. The pitchers dominated from the start and the game was scoreless through six innings. Rochester broke through in the seventh and took a 1-0 lead but in the bottom of the ninth Pawtucket tied it up and they were off to extra innings.  A whole lotta extra innings.

Each team marched an army of pitchers to the mound, keeping the hitters at bay. After twelve innings it was still deadlocked. Fifteen innings. Eighteen. Twenty. In the top of the 21^st the Red Wings scored to take a 2-1 lead but the Pawsox tied it again. So the bands played on past midnight.

There was a curfew rule in the International League stating that no inning could start after 12:50 AM. Pawtucket informed the home plate umpire Dennis Gregg. He replied that he didn’t know of any such rule and ordered play to continue, so on they went. 23 innings. 25. It was getting ridiculous. After 27 innings the exhausted teams had, in effect, played a tripleheader with no decision – and no breaks. 29 innings. 31. No end in sight. It was well after 3 AM when the umpires finally found out about the 12:50 curfew regulation. It turned out that the league's rule book they recieved at the start of the season didn’t include that information. Everyone shrugged and continued the game anyway. Hey, why stop now?

In the 32^nd inning the league president called and ordered play to be stopped at the end of that inning, regardless. Neither team scored, so after 8 hours, 25 minutes, 32 innings and the score tied 2-2, the ubermarathon was finally halted just a half-hour before dawn. Normally they would have resumed the next day before the scheduled game, but instead they decided to complete it two months later on June 23, Rochester’s next visit to Pawtucket.

The game drew attention around the country and after the Major League players went on strike on June 12, it became a big news event. The media descended on Pawtucket to witness baseball history (provided the game ever ended). However the Red Sox, no longer burdened by having played eight straight hours of baseball, took only 18 minutes to win it when Dave Koza (in his 14th at-bat of the game) drove in Marty Barrett with a single in the bottom of the 33^rd inning, thus completing the longest game, by time and innings, in the history of professional baseball. One wonders how much longer this game would have gone on if the commissioner hadn't intervened because suspending it eliminated the continuous dynamics, particularly physical and emotional fatigue, which is a major part of extra-inning games.

 

Highlights and Lowlights

- Rochester’s Dallas Williams went 0-13, the longest one game O-fer in baseball history.

- Pawtucket's Russ Laribee went 0-11 and struck out seven times.
- Pawtucket’s Jim Umbarger pitched ten innings of shutout ball with nine strikeouts and he didn’t even enter the game until the 23^rd inning.

- Between the teams there was a total of 882 pitches to 246 batters and home plate umpire Dennis Gregg was there for every single one of them.

 

"Baseball. Damndest game I ever saw."

                                                          ~ Keith Hernandez

A wall at McCoy Stadium commemorating the historic game

Of Cubs And Kismet

 

Submitted for your perusal: A chilly, breezy November night in Wrigley Field, game seven of the World Series. It's the top of the 9th and the Chicago Cubs are clinging to a one-run lead. The American League champions have the bases loaded, two outs and the count is full on their best hitter. There's no place to put him. It's bedlam in the Friendly Confines as everyone is on their feet screaming (or praying, as the case may be) and fans all over town are already dealing with Cubs-PTSD. More than 700 million people all over the world are watching on TV or listening to the radio broadcasts and the media is all set for an unprecedented worldwide blitz.  As the entire planet waits with bated breath for the next pitch, it has all come down to this. Will the Cubs finally make it to the promised land after wandering in the baseball desert for 108 years? Or will lightning strike and fate spear the Cubs' faithful in the heart again in the most sadistic way yet?

It's the mother of all do-or-die situations (to be doubly proverbial). For the Chicago pitcher, standing all alone,  marooned on the mound, it feels like the fate of the whole universe rests on his pitching arm. The pressure will be beyond inhumane because if he fails with this much at stake and the Cubs end up losing he will be harassed, threatened and publicly disgraced by media and fans alike and given an immediate armored car ride out of Dodge and into the Witness Protection Program while the Chicago Police Department dispatches units to Willis Tower to disperse and prevent suicide leapers. And what would become of the poor Cub who commits a Buckner that changes the course of the game or the series? Or - dare we even think - Bartman II? (Okay, okay, forget I mentioned that one.)

The flip side, of course, is if the pitcher gets the final out he's the Emperor of Earth all winter long and a baseball legend for life (or at least until his first loss next year), the Cubs become the biggest feel-good story of the 21st century and the 24/7 partying will carry on all the way to Spring Training.

With the 2016 baseball season about to start and so many sportswriters, radio talking heads and their many loyal minions jumping aboard the Chicago Cubs Bandwagon Express, a little real-time reality is in order. The Cubs have a very good shot at going all the way this year and while that extreme 9th inning scenario is as about as likely as finding a living witness to their last World Championship, the pressure to get that last out will be tremendous even if the Cubs have a 10-run lead. You don't have to be a Doctor of Psychology to understand that during the course of repeated attempts to achieve, the longer it takes the harder it gets and hence, the worse the pressure will be. It doesn't matter if the Cubs are good or bad. Invariably during every season the media and opposing fans will bring up 1908 right up to that do-or-die game, even if it's just a regular season elimination. It's unavoidable.

That said, Cub fans and their rabid devotion to a team that hasn't won a World Series in over a century are unparalleled in sports. Be it in their living rooms, the bars, at the ballpark or on the rooftops across the street on Waveland and Sheffield Avenues, they are preposterously loyal masochists beyond hope who love their Cubbies, win or lose, and are damn proud of it. That, along with plenty of emotional scar tissue, is what it takes to be a baseball fan in the north side of Chicago.

 

Phil Jackson Is Just Getting Started

"So far my experiment has fallen flat on its face."

  Those were the words of New York Knicks' president Phil Jackson while assessing the results the triangle offense has had on the team this season. However, some are taking it the usual steps further by calling Jackson himself a flop and labeling the triangle as outdated and unworkable in today's NBA. Well, a good look at the bigger picture is in order, whether those "experts" like it or not. 

  First and most obvious, these Knicks aren't exactly Jackson's Los Angeles Lakers or Chicago Bulls. Aside from Carmelo Anthony this roster is pretty much D-League material. But it's easy to see why. Jackson has been busy creating as much cap room as possible while getting rid of bad and unnecessary players and utilizing the "art" of tanking because that's the way it's done in the NBA these days. And, unlike his predecessors, Jackson has easily resisted other teams' attempts to sweet-talk him out of what could be the first pick in the NBA draft this summer and a shot at college phenom Jahlil Okafor. The long/short of it is, Phil Jackson has spent his first year on the job putting the Knicks into a position they've never been in before. That's why this season was a wash from the start and the writers and radio talking heads (and fans who flock to them like seagulls to a garbage dump) should know this.
  Furthermore, the sports media-fueled notion that no free agent will come to the Knicks because they're a bad team is dumb at best because any free agent(s) immediately improves the team.  And, of course, money still talks and the Knicks will have loads of it to offer as well as the lure of Madison Square Garden, New York City, all the publicity and fame as well as endless endorsement and business opportunities that no other city can match. 

  But here's the key. When free agent season opens in July Jackson won't automatically be going big game hunting. Certainly, he'll be trying to land a big name or two this summer and next but he knows the priority is to fill the roster with the right players, the smart players, the fundamental players, not with as many superstars as the Knicks can afford. Jackson knows as well as any jaded Knick fan that the quick-fix approach has never worked in the 42 years since the Knicks' last championship. His Lakers and Bulls will be the model rosters Jackson will pattern the Knicks after, if possible. Whatever transpires, this summer is when things will start getting very interesting at Madison Square Garden.

Baseball, You Have a BIG Problem

There was a time when the name Tommy John meant an excellent pitcher who happened to make history when he was the first patient to undergo an ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction (or UCL), a new procedure developed by the late Dr. Frank Jobe.   The operation was revolutionary and was named after John. Nowadays, for pitchers, the name Tommy John has mutated into the definition of a living nightmare and all of organized baseball should be petrified.

Matt Harvey

During the 20th century a torn elbow ligament was often referred to as a "dead arm injury" and depending on the severity usually meant the end of a career. Tommy John Surgery changed that bleak outlook by providing a fix for that scenario, the same way a torn rotator cuff once spelled doom for pitchers until all the wonderful things that science and medical research has made available changed that outcome for the better. Typical recovery time for UCL surgery is one year, give or take, and the success rate is over 90%. However, this has led to a false reliance on it because the number of cases has taken an alarming direction and has recently included young star pitchers like Washington's Stephen Strasburg, the Mets' Matt Harvey, Miami's 2013 N.L. Rookie of the Year Jose Fernandez and at the time of this writing, possibly Yankee sensation Masahiro Tanaka.
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During the time Spring Training opened through the first week of the regular season 11 pitchers had been diagnosed with torn elbow ligaments and were gone for the season, some for the second time. It's not restricted to pitchers either, as Marlins' shortstop Rafael Furcal and Orioles catcher Matt Wieters can attest. Considering the money-is-everything mentality of sports, this counter-productive development should be gaining more of an emergency effort to reverse it instead of maintaining an ill-advised dependency on surgery and rehab.

How did baseball go from having legendary fireballers like Bob Feller, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson having no such injuries in their long careers to what we're seeing now? The problem is easily traced to alterations over the years in dynamics and methods of pitching windups, particularly too much emphasis on arm strength instead of pushing off with the rear leg which Seaver and Ryan (pictured) used to great effect well into their 40s. Add to that the foolish notion that these "modern" techniques can allow starters to increase their velocity and work less innings while relievers can go for triple-digit speed, throwing harder between appearances, restrictive pitch counts that result in less innings to build up in-game physical endurance, and you have the makings of a rapidly spreading epidemic that could threaten the game more than performance enhancing drugs ever have.

Using PEDs is an individual's choice (and eventual risk), but shaving a year off a promising player's career due to universal training procedures authorized by the game itself shouldn't be considered a virtual right of passage. If you stop and think about it, that's the direction it's heading and a lot of young athletes will eventually start choosing a sport other than baseball, or at least give serious consideration to it. This problem has the potential to jeopardize the future of Major League Baseball when young players start getting forced out of the game before they even get their careers going.

MLB alone isn't to blame. Organized baseball at every level encourages young pitchers to throw hard starting as early as high school. They all better start getting major-league serious about solving this situation fast before they have to start dredging the Little Leagues for pitchers.

A Message From a Baseball Legend

"There's something going on in baseball that seems very funny to me. I spent 43 years in baseball, and all my years as a kid playing and loving the game more than life. But today, all I read and hear is negative ... negative ... negative.

Baseball has what no other sport has. It has great suspense. I recently watched the Dodgers and Reds play a 12-inning game. After the Dodgers scored a run to take the lead, they brought in their closer, Todd Worrell, and he got hammered for two quick homers and the Reds won the game. It didn't matter who you were rooting for ... it gave you goose bumps.

... And we somehow forget about it. Baseball is the only sport where you cannot stall out the clock. Each team must get 27 outs. I don't care if it takes two hours or four hours, you must get 27 outs. And this is done 162 times a year.

Baseball is marvelous. Let's stop all the negative, hold firm and realize we have the greatest game in the world."

~ Sparky Anderson, "Sparky's Corner" 1996 in The Sporting News.