Beyond the 9th: The Drama of Baseball's Marathon Matches

There must be something in the water or the baked beans in Boston.

In addition to major league baseball’s longest game – the 26-inning Brooklyn Robins-Boston Braves game of May 1, 1920 (that’s another story for another blog), the first two record-length games in the American League that were completed in one afternoon, also took place in Boston.

Both games involved the Philadelphia Athletics.

Philadelphia Athletics at Boston Braves: July 4th 1905

Connie Mack’s A’s were jockeying with Cleveland and Chicago for first place on the morning of July 4, 1905, in Boston.

The day dawned clear and hot for the traditional holiday morning-afternoon doubleheader. Almost 9,000 early birds turned out for the morning game.

Lefthander Eddie Plank started for the visitors, Jess Tannehill for the Boston Americans. When Plank felt ill after the third inning, Mack sent in Andy Coakley, who took a 5-2 lead into the bottom of the ninth.

With two men on and one out, Mack sent in his ace workhorse, Rube Waddell, who retired the next two batters. (The use of three pitchers in a game was uncommon enough for writers to credit “Connie Mack’s brainwork” for the win.)

That was just a warmup for Waddell, who started the afternoon game against Cy Young.

At 38, Young had already won over 400 games. He and the Rube had many memorable matchups; a year earlier Waddell had been on the losing end of Young’s perfect game.

Almost 13,000 fans paid from 25 cents to a dollar to sit or stand in the Huntington Avenue grounds. Boston touched up Waddell for two quick runs in the first.

The A’s tied it in the sixth when Bris Lord singled and Harry Davis hit one of his league-leading eight home runs.

In the last of the eighth Fred Parent led off with a triple. The crowd stomped and whistled. Unaffected, Waddell struck out Burkett and Stahl. Unglaub hit a fly ball that Seybold caught for the third out. At the end of nine it was still 2-2.

Both pitchers were on their games. Waddell’s fastball, shoot, raise and drop baffled the Boston batters. Behind him, A’s fielders cut off would-be hits..

Young was putting every pitch exactly where he wanted it. Neither pitcher appeared to tire as the innings rolled by: 13 . . . 14 . . . 15 . . . 16 . . . 17 .            . . 18 . . . 19.

Neither Boston manager Jimmy Collins nor Connie Mack thought of relieving his pitcher. Nobody in the ballpark went home. 

When fatigue set in, it was the Boston infield, not Cy Young, who succumbed. Danny Murphy led off for the A’s in the top of the 20th and hit a grounder to Collins at third. Collins booted it.

Young, who had not walked a batter, then threw his most erratic pitch of the day, a one-strike fastball that hit Jack Knight on the hand. Monte Cross ran for him. First and second, no outs.

Ossee Schreckengost popped a bunt toward second. Second baseman Hobe Ferriss hesitated, uncertain whether to stay on the bag and let Cy Young take it or go after it..

When Young made no move for it, Ferriss made a belated attempt. It fell at his feet. Bases loaded.

Rube Waddell hit a grounder. The throw went to third, forcing Cross, as Murphy scored. Danny Hoffman then singled in the second run.

Waddell cut down the Bostons in the bottom of the 20th for the 4-2 win.

Game time: 3:31.

Years later Cy Young recalled that Rube “was at his best that day and had all our left-hand batters swinging like so many old women.

On the other hand, the Athletics were always threatening to put me off watch. . . . How did I feel when the scrap was over?  Well, I thought it was all right until I hit the clubhouse.

Then I all but keeled over. When I sat down and tried to get up it was as if there was a pain in every bone in my body. Then, when I tried to take off my shoes, I hardly had the strength to untie the laces. 

“And what do you think the Rube was doing? There he was on the other side of the clubhouse turning flip-flops and smoking a cigarette.”

Men were men and arms were arms in those days. A’s catcher Ossee Schreckengost caught all 29 innings that day, still a record.

Three days later both pitchers were in the box again in Philadelphia. This time the game went only ten innings, the A’s winning, 2-1.

Rube would have gone all the way, but a line drive hit him in the left hand in the seventh inning. The hand swelled up; after giving up a leadoff single in the eighth, he had to come out. 

Cy Young pitched for another six years, Rube Waddell another five.

Philadelphia Athletics at Boston Braves: September 1st 1906

Of the three record games played in Boston, the 24-inning battle on Saturday, September 1, 1906, was by far the most exciting.

Although no baserunners crossed the plate from the seventh to the 24th, there were 31 hits, including two doubles and six triples hit into the overflow crowd, eight walks and a hit batter, and seven stolen bases.

Both pitchers spent the day working out of jams. Spectacular fielding plays helped to stave off defeat for both teams.

Neither team was going anywhere. After pennants in 1903 and ’04, Boston had fallen into the cellar. The Athletics, after winning the pennant in 1905, had stayed in the pennant race until August.

By now they were out of it. For the first game, Connie Mack gave the ball to a tall, strong rookie right-hander, Jack Coombs, who had joined the team in June after graduating from Colby College.

Twenty-four-year-old right-hander Joe Harris started for Boston. Technically a rookie – he had been 1-2 in three starts in 1905, Harris was on his way to one of baseball’s all-time worst seasons: 2 wins and 21 losses.

But this one day’s work would put him into legendary company.

Regardless of the standings, a doubleheader on a warm Saturday afternoon was always good for an overflow crowd at the Huntington Avenue grounds.

More than 18,000 filled the seats and a good portion of the outfield grass behind stretched ropes by the time the lone umpire, Tim Hurst, appeared.

The A’s took a 1-0 lead in the third on two singles around a stolen base. Boston tied it in the sixth on a triple and a single.

From then on the tension built and broke with the regularity of ocean waves breaking on a beach. Every inning seemed to bring one or both teams to the brink of defeat.

Three times Connie Mack ordered an intentional walk in a threatening situation. Each time it worked and Coombs pitched out of the pinch.

The last time, in the 18th, Coombs walked Stahl to load the bases with one out. He then struck out Hobe Ferris and Fred Hoey.

Make that four times, not three. In the 15th, Coombs had tried to walk the veteran slugger Buck Freeman, pinch-hitting for catcher Bill Carrigan.

The frustrated Freeman reached across the plate and swung at a wide one, grounding out.

By the time the game passed the 20th inning, the fans were cheering both pitchers. Philadelphia’s scoring threats were constantly thwarted by the sensational play of Parent at shortstop and Ferriss at second.

Between them they handled 28 chances. Center fielder Chick Stahl and rookie third baseman Red Morgan robbed the A’s of potential run-scoring hits.

Until the 24th.

In the 23rd, the outfielders on both teams complained to umpire Tim Hurst that it was too dark to follow the flight of the ball. They were ready to quit. Not the two pitchers.

They could have pitched all night if there had been lights. Hurst ignored the complaints and the game went on.

Harris began the top of the 24th by striking out Coombs. Hartsel singled and stole second. Lord struck out. Schreckengost singled over second and Hartsel scored.

Joe Harris suddenly ran out of gas. Seybold and Murphy tripled into the outfield crowd for two more runs.

Coombs had no trouble retiring the weary home team. Altogether he struck out 18; Harris fanned 14 and walked two.

Time of game: 4:47.

Jack Coombs, who later called his 16-inning 0-0 three-hitter against Ed Walsh and the White Sox his best-ever game, continued to take his regular turn, though he had wrenched ligaments in his arm..

His workload did fall off for the next two years, but the damage, if any, was temporary.

In 1910-1911 he won 59 games and pitched almost 700 innings. It was illness, not arm trouble,that ultimately curtailed his career.

Joe Harris was 0-7 in 1907, ending a three-year career with a 3-30 record.

On July 21, 1945, the Athletics were involved in another 24-inning game, a 1-1 tie with Detroit called on account of darkness after only four hours forty-eight minutes.

Neither pitcher went all the way in that one, though Les Mueller worked 19 2/3 innings for the Tigers. Each team used only two pitchers.

Baseball’s Longest Doubleheader

The longest doubleheader, made possible by a rule allowing the lights to be turned on to complete a day game, took place on Monday, May 31, 1964, at the three-year-old New York Mets’ new Shea Stadium against the San Francisco Giants.

A holiday crowd of 57,037 saw almost 10 hours of baseball: a “normal” 5-3 Giants’ win in the first game, followed by a 23-inning game won by the Giants, 8-6.

Each team used six pitchers; Gaylord Perry worked the 13th through the 22nd and earned one of his eventual 314 wins.

In 1984 Milwaukee and the White Sox played a 25-inning game that lasted for two days and seemed longer. Suspended on May 8 after 17 innings tied 3-3, the game was resumed the next day.

It took another eight innings -- both teams scored 3 in the 21st -- before Harold Baines’s home run won it for Chicago in the 25th.

Game time: 8:06.