Talk:Longest professional baseball game

Untitled
I attended this game, April 18, 1981 between the Pawtucket Red Sox and Rochester Red Wings. I was 12 years old. I grew up in E Providence, RI, the next town over from Pawtucket. My uncle Tony was a big Pawsox fan, and took us to this event. By 11:00, the game had gone more than 20 innings, and my uncle realized this was an historic outing. No way he would leave. By 1 am, though, my brother and I had completely fallen apart, and had no desire to stick around for the end of this seemingly interminable game. It was finally postponed at 4am, to be finished at a later date. The ordeal put me off the whole sport of baseball for years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.163.108.173 (talk • contribs) 15:00, 22 April 2006

for curiousity's sake, did you end up getting the life-time passes to the stadium? Cieltsd 01:57, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Line score
I have changed the line score of this game from the previous four-tiered line score to a simpler one-liner. If anyone has any objections, please raise them here or on my talk page. ςפקι Д Иτς ☺ ☻ — Preceding undated comment added 18:46, 26 August 2006‎

Really the longest?
This may be the longest as measured by innings played, but how about time elapsed? JDG 14:51, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I believe it's both. The longest Major League game is 8:06, a 25-inning affair between the Cubs and Brewers in 1984.  Between the two days combined, this one was listed at 8:25. -- dakern74 (talk) 15:15, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:PawtucketRedSox84.GIF
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BetacommandBot (talk) 17:25, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Free Lifetime Passes
Seems like an unlikely thing for an organization to do. I've added a source, but it's secondhand. Anyone have a good source on this?  Citi Cat   ♫ 14:50, 4 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I added this nugget based on a 20th-anniversary story that Pawtucket had in their game program during the 2001 season. In addition to the lifetime passes, they also mention giving away free hot dogs and soda as the night went on.  Unfortunately, since Wikipedia doesn't realize there are media other than the Internet, there's no good way to cite this because you can't link to it.  It wasn't mentioned in the 25th-anniversary version in 2006, but that was more about the resumption and the media circus that surrounded the 33rd inning, instead of the original Saturday night.  If you have any ideas for how to better verify this, I'd appreciate it. -- dakern74 (talk) 02:59, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * That is not true. You can cite the program, just give details about its year, month, etc., and which page(s) the statement appears on. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 04:20, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm lame and didn't check the talk page first - I edited it to season passes based on an archived International League site. Both that site and the Washington Post article state that it was season passes, not lifetime passes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.35.61.81 (talk) 02:48, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

So on the whole "season" versus "lifetime" pass thing - I'm about halfway tempted to just remove it. The Washington Post is probably more reliable, but it's still 25 years removed from the source of the game. The only other "maybe reliable" source is that archived article from the IL's site. It's an awesome tidbit and certainly romantic either way, but if it can't be sourced, should it be in here? 24.35.61.81 (talk) 08:21, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Records Set in the Game
Unless I am missing something, some of the records listed in this section seem contradictory. The article states that 33 innings were played, yet the records section says 174. The playtime is listed as a seemingly erroneous "3 Days 12 Hours 52 Minutes 7 Seconds." Are these reconcilable in some way I missed, or are they just vandalism? 152.7.15.87 (talk) 00:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Most innings: 174th?????
I thought it was 33 innings?? Is this vandalism? ~ GoldenGoose100 (talk) 19:58, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Is the Pope Catholic? I reverted it. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 20:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I have a question. At one point the article says the game was suspended after the 29th inning, but then it says when it resumed they only needed one more inning to finish the game. But the game lasted 33 innings? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.171.17.192 (talk) 17:55, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Previous record
What previous record was broken by this game? That's a useful piece of information in any record article. Dynzmoar (talk) 20:24, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Book -- Bottom of the 33rd by Dan Barry
While reading this book and this article, it's a pleasure to see that the book has very little to add to the facts in the article. The book does have a (small, B&W) photo of the official score sheet, which the official scorer, Bill George, did in three colors, since he had to use the 12-inning format of the score page 3 times. Including a (large, color) picture of that wonderful item would satisfy the most hardened baseball geek. 24.27.31.170 (talk) 19:58, 27 September 2011 (UTC) Eric

The Box Score
The box score given here has got to be wrong. Nay, it’s impossible.

The boxes appear to balance, according to the rules explained in Box score (baseball).


 * As none of the errors were made by the catchers, we may assume that nobody reached base on catcher interference. Putouts will necessarily be 3 times innings pitched.


 * Rochester had 105 at-bats + 18 opposition walks + 2 hit batters + 6 sac hits + 0 sac flies for a total of 131; they scored 2 runs, left 30 men on base, and the opposition had 99 putouts, and these numbers also sum to 131. Q.E.D


 * Pawtucket had 114 at-bats + 5 opposition walks + 2 hit batters + 0 sac hits + 1 sac fly. Total 122; they scored 3 runs, left 23 men on base, and their opposition had 96 putouts (the game ended with none out in the 33rd). Total also 122. Q.E.D.

Thus the numbers are thus at least self-consistent. It’s the lineup that’s peculiar.

The Pawtucket batting grid is reasonable, but the Rochester side has problems. It says that their designated hitter, Corey, only had 5 at bats, then gave way to a pinch-hitter, and no other designated hitters are shown are shown. If that’s true, Rochester’s pitchers would have had plate appearances, but such is not shown.

I’ve seen the same curious numbers in other versions of this box, certainly from a common (bad) source. However, one variant box (published early, after inning 32) has Rayford as a “pr” only, and not a “c,” but still with multiple at-bats! Another variant box (for all 33 innings) has Rochester pitchers Grilli and Speck in the batting record, albeit with no at bats.

So, my guess would be that after Corey (“dh”) garnered 5 AB, Chisolm pinch hit for him, and the latter should be tagged “ph-dh.” Reyford ran for Chisolm and remained in the game in the designated hitter slot, and so should be “pr-dh” ... but stay tuned.

We are told in the reports that Rochester catcher Huppert caught 31 innings. It looks as if Putnam (ph) batted for Huppert in the top of the 32nd. This must have required Reyford to come in to catch, so his line should be “pr-dh-c.” With the designated hitter moving to a defensive position, subsequent pitchers Grilli and Speck would occupy the ninth batting slot, though things worked out that this slot didn’t come up again.

It would appear that the published box only listed everybody's final position. Now, there must be a correct box score somewhere (or better yet, a play-by-play account), and I suspect that such would confirm my guesses. If and when someone corrects this, I hope that, instead of centering the batters’ names in a column, they make them flush left and indent the nonstarters, as is often done with modern box scores.

WHPratt (talk) 01:39, 9 October 2022 (UTC)