The Never-Ending Game
On April 18, 1981 the Pawtucket Red Sox faced off against the Rochester Red Wings.
At the time, Wade Boggs was playing for Pawtucket, and Cal Ripken Jr. was on the Red Wings.
The game began like any other, but it wouldn't end until 8 hours and 25 minutes later.
The Sox took a 1-0 lead in the seventh, but Rochester tied it up in the bottom of the ninth.
After that, the scoreboard had goose eggs on both sides for the next 11 innings.
As you can imagine, fatigue started to set in.
On top of that, the playing conditions were brutal.
The weather was so cold that players burned broken bats and the stadium's wooden benches to warm themselves, and the clubhouses ran out of food.
In the 21st inning, the Red Wings went up 2-1, but then Wade Boggs knocked in a run for the Sox in the bottom half; he said his teammates couldn't decide if they wanted to "hug him or slug him."
The battle continued, and nobody touched home plate for another 11 innings.
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Sometime after three in the morning, Harold Cooper (the President of the league) woke up to repeated calls from Pawtucket's GM.
Of course Cooper was blown away that the game was still happening and put the kibosh on it.
Finally the game was officially suspended at 4:07 a.m. on April 19 in the 32nd inning.
Out of the 1,740 fans that showed up that night, 20 diehards were still in the stands.
The players finally got a chance to sleep, but not before they broke a shit ton of records.
Here's a few of the big ones:
Longest Game (Both in terms of innings and time)
Most strikeouts (Rochester with 34)
Most plate appearances (Tom Eaton, Cal Ripken, Dallas Williams - 15 each)
Most at-bats (Dave Koza, Lee Graham, Chico Walker - 14 each)
Most put-outs for one team (Pawtucket - 99)
They finished the damn thing two months later, on June 23rd.
5,746 showed up to watch 18 minutes of baseball.
In the first inning of play that day, the 33rd overall, Packtucket got right down to business against Steve Grilli, who wasn't even with the Red Wings when this whole saga began.
With the bases loaded, Dave Koza hit a 2-2 curveball into left field to walk it off.
He said it was one of the best days of his life.
When the dust settled, the whole thing took 882 pitches.
