The 21st-inning stretch

[dixiehack]

I never listen to minor league baseball on the radio, but while driving home from Atlanta I stumbled across a game in the 14th inning.

It did the job keeping me up for the rest of the trip. But now that I'm home it is keeping me up out of morbid curiosity. Birmingham and Chattanooga starting the 21st inning tied 1-1. Lookouts are going with their second position player on the mound after getting two scoreless innings from a utility infielder. Barons have not scored since the first. Oh, and it is a getaway game for both teams.

 

[dixiehack]

Barons put their own position player on the mound for the bottom of the 21st. Four walks later, Chattanooga wins 2-1. Lookouts had two out and nobody on in the ninth before tying it.

The floor is now open for longest game memories.

 

[Jake_Taylor]

I was at the longest college lacrosse game ever.

Virginia Wins Longest Lacrosse Game

 

[PCLoadLetter]

The first two major league games I went to as a kid both went 14 innings.

 

[Matt1735]

I umpired a 20 inning high school game. Scoreless for the first 19, not because of Stellar pitching but because of anemic hitting. The visiting team scored two in the top of the 20th and promptly gave up three in the bottom of the 20th

 

[lcjjdnh]

Nowhere near the longest game, in fact, but it sure felt like it being there. Remember in HS a 30-something to 30-something TRIPLE OT basketball game, in which our rival school decided to the Four Corners offense for the majority of the second half (and OT) after their best player got hurt. Fortunately, that tactic was unsuccessful and they lost on a buzzer-beating 3.

 

[Armchair_QB]

Cal Ripken and Wade Boggs laugh at your 21-inning game.

Longest professional baseball game - Wikipedia

 

[Dick Whitman]

Cal Ripken and Wade Boggs laugh at your 21-inning game.

Longest professional baseball game - Wikipedia

I wonder if a young Jason Grilli stayed awake to watch his dad pitch the 33rd.

 

[sgreenwell]

The longest game I ever saw in person was an 18-inning one in 2001, Red Sox vs. Tigers. I was 17 at the time and a junior in high school, so the next day was a groggy affair, since we got home at like 2 or 3 a.m., IIRC. The parents weren't too pleased either. I went with four buddies, and between us we had one cell phone back then, so we had called around 11 or so, and that was it. (Either dead battery or almost no signal in the park, can't remember which.) Shea Hillenbrand ended it with a dinger, and I mostly remember him for that and being in a long-line of Red Sox 3b that were kind of, sort of supposed to be good. (Him, Wilton Veras, Scott Cooper, etc.)

Shea Hillenbrand’s home run rescues Red Sox in 18th - The Boston Globe

 

[BTExpress]

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Cal Ripken and Wade Boggs laugh at your 21-inning game.

Longest professional baseball game - Wikipedia

Two stories I always like from that game. The one where they kept trying to get ahold of the league president to see if he was willing to let them suspend the game, only he was asleep until they finally woke him up, where he was shocked that they were still playing.

The other story is about the player who arrived home at 5 a.m. to be greeted by an angry wife who thought he was out having an affair.

 

[daytonadan1983]

I had an 18 inning 1-0 softball HS playoff game. Pitcher struck out 38 and drove in the only run. Damn right I billed double.

Had an 8 OT college football game. In the 7th OT, lineman blocks a FG and lumbers the other and finished with a big dive...over the 5 yard line. Team won in next IT.

And these are the memories that make me a wealthy soul.

 

[Steak Snabler]

Cal Ripken and Wade Boggs laugh at your 21-inning game.

Longest professional baseball game - Wikipedia

There's a great book about that game called "Bottom of the 33rd."

Amazon product ASIN B004JN1DBY
One of the better anecdotes is Paw Sox (and later Red Sox) pitcher Luis Aponte arriving home at dawn and his wife wouldn't let him in their apartment because she didn't believe the game had gone all night. He picked up the paper off the steps to show her, but the game ran so late it didn't make the paper.

EDIT: Baron beat me to it.

 

[John]

In my seven years at the Chattanooga paper, I covered some horrid 9-inning Lookouts games that felt like 21.

And a mid-week college baseball game can feel like 21 innings, when there's a pitching change every inning and by the ninth you realize you've seen as many warmup pitches and live pitches.

 

[Steak Snabler]

I went to and stayed for a 15-inning Braves-Phillies game in 1994. Atlanta trailed 8-1 heading into the 9th, scored seven in the ninth to tie it, then won it 15 on a Mike Stanton squeeze bunt single over the third baseman's head, with Deion Sanders scoring from third.

Stanton also pitched four scoreless innings.

BASEBALL; Pitcher's 15th-Inning Bunt Boosts Braves

 

[playthrough]

I had an 18 inning 1-0 softball HS playoff game. Pitcher struck out 38 and drove in the only run. Damn right I billed double.

Had an 8 OT college football game. In the 7th OT, lineman blocks a FG and lumbers the other and finished with a big dive...over the 5 yard line. Team won in next IT.

And these are the memories that make me a wealthy soul.

I had plenty of extra-inning softball games and a couple 17-18 inning affairs that were strikeout-fests between good pitchers. I could have taken a dinner break and not missed anything. And the endings, 1-0, were almost always the same -- a walk or a feeble hit followed by an error by a fielder who hadn't had to do anything the entire game.

 

[MTM]

I went to a game in San Diego in 2009 that lasted 18 innings and 5:45 before infielder Josh Wilson gave up a homer and the D'backs beat the Padres.

Padres fall in 18th inning to Diamondbacks

 

[Huggy]

There's a great book about that game called "Bottom of the 33rd."

Amazon product ASIN B004JN1DBY
One of the better anecdotes is Paw Sox (and later Red Sox) pitcher Luis Aponte arriving home at dawn and his wife wouldn't let him in their apartment because she didn't believe the game had gone all night. He picked up the paper off the steps to show her, but the game ran so late it didn't make the paper.

EDIT: Baron beat me to it.

I will second the recommendation of this book, a great read. I saw the Hall exhibit on this game including the scorecard from the official scorer

 

[dixiehack]

Official time of the game was 5:30, which is probably as good as you can hope for with that many innings. Radio guy was lamenting that the game was less than two hours old when Chattanooga made its second out in the ninth.

Lookouts get walk-off 2-1 win in 21st inning

 

[HanSenSE]

Clubhouse leader in MLB division is the Mets-Braves game on 7/4-5/85. Couple of rain delays and it ended in the wee hours. And since it was fireworks night, the Braves let them off after the game! There's a story about someone covering that game buried somewhere on this board.