Liberal Talk Radio

Saturday marked the 25th anniversary of the conclusion of the longest professional baseball game ever. If you’ve ever groaned after watching a scoreboard operator reset the inning display, if you’ve ever rooted against your team just so the damn game would end or if you’ve ever felt a twinge of disappointment after the home team tied the game again in the bottom of the 14th, you’ll appreciate this piece of baseball lore in which Wade Boggs, Cal Ripken, Jr. and Joe Morgan figure prominently:

The game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings, the Class AAA affiliates of the Boston Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles, began in Pawtucket, R.I., on the night of April 18, 1981, went into the early morning of April 19 (when the game was halted), and concluded June 23.

It became the longest game in the history of professional baseball, lasting 33 innings, with a total of 882 pitches thrown and 156 baseballs used over 8 hours 25 minutes. It finally ended with Pawtucket scoring a run in the bottom of the 33rd.

A reunion commemorating the 25th anniversary of the game’s conclusion was held Friday at a downtown hotel here, with 20 former Pawtucket players and 9 former Rochester players attending a luncheon. There was another ceremony Friday night at McCoy Stadium, the Pawtucket team’s home park.

The 1981 game began on a Saturday night at McCoy Stadium with 1,740 fans in attendance. When it was stopped, after 32 innings, at 4:09 Easter morning, with the score tied at 2-2, 19 fans were left in the stands.

“No, none of the players fell asleep,” Hurst said. “We were just trying to stay warm. It was the coldest I’ve ever been in uniform.”

Marty Barrett, then the second baseman for Pawtucket, recalled that as the game went on, the temperature began to drop. “It must have been in the mid-30’s, and the wind was blowing in at about 15 miles an hour — I bet the wind chill factor was 20 degrees,” he said. Barrett said that Bob Ojeda, the eventual winning pitcher, found a 55-gallon trash can and lit a fire with the numerous bats that broke during the game.

. . .

“When I doubled in the tying run in the 21st inning, I didn’t know if the guys wanted to hug me or slug me,” said Wade Boggs, now a Hall of Famer, who played third base for Pawtucket. “But, being competitors, we did want to win the game.”

As for why the game stretched on and on and on, it’s simple: it took place before the advent of cell phones:

The game was stopped after repeated calls to Harold Cooper, the president of the International League, in Columbus, Ohio. Cooper had been at a wedding and did not get home until 3 a.m. Hurst said, “I heard that he said: ‘You idiot, this is absurd. Call the game.’”