Longest baseball game ever? The inside scoop on what happened at McCoy

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PAWTUCKET — Did you know the longest game in professional baseball took place right here in Rhode Island?

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With McCoy Stadium long gone, we at The Providence Journal are trying to help keep the memories of the PawSox, and the beloved stadium, alive.

On the evening of April 18, 1981 — 45 years ago — the Pawtucket Red Sox and Rochester Red Wings began what would be the longest game in the history of professional baseball. The game had been delayed by some faulty light towers and the first pitch wasn't tossed until 8:02 p.m.

Shortly after 4 the next morning, Easter Sunday, the game was suspended after 32 innings.

When play resumed on June 23, Pawtucket won, 3-2, after one more inning of play — making for a 33-inning total, which remains the record today.

At the time, one newspaper called Pawtucket “Everybody’s Mudville.”

Why did the game take so long?

Although International League rules dictate that games must end or be suspended by 1 a.m., home plate umpire Dennis Cregg’s rule book was not the updated version and didn’t contain that clause. So the game went on. At the start of the 30th inning, the game broke the minor-league record of 29 innings set on June 14, 1966, in a Florida State League game that saw the Miami Marlins prevail, 4-3, over the St. Petersburg Cardinals at Al Lang Field in St. Petersburg. That game took 6 hours, 59 minutes to complete. As the Red Wings-PawSox marathon dragged on, players began burning benches in the bullpen and broken bats in the dugout to stay warm.

It wasn’t until after 3 a.m. that International League president Harold Cooper was reached on the phone and he ordered play stopped at the end of the current inning. Play was halted at 4:07 after 32 innings. There were 19 fans left from the original crowd of 1,740 and all received lifetime passes to McCoy Stadium from PawSox owner Ben Mondor.

The game resumed on June 23, when the Red Wings returned to town. By then, the Major League Baseball players had gone on strike and a sellout crowd of 5,746 fans and 140 reporters from around the world were present. The players voted against an offer to resume the game at Fenway Park to avoid crossing the picket line.

Game stats

The 33-inning extravaganza took 8 hours, 25 minutes to complete. A total of 882 pitches were thrown, 53 runners were left on base (30 by Rochester).

But there are other fun stats: There were 11 pitchers, 59 strikeouts, 218 at-bats and 36 hits.

Future Hall of Famers played in the game that day

Both future Hall of Fame infielders, Wade Boggs and Cal Ripken Jr. crossed paths on the night that helped define McCoy Stadium. Boggs went 4-for-12 with an RBI in that 33-inning game; Ripken went 2-for-13 for Rochester (and of course played the entire game). Big-league stars to-be Rich Gedman, Bob Ojeda, Bruce Hurst and Marty Barrett also played in that game.

“There were several of us who had bad weeks in that game,” Ripken joked, though not referring to Red Wings pitcher Jim Umbarger. He threw an amazing 10 innings of scoreless relief, allowing four hits and no walks. Boggs would go on to win five American League batting titles and was in good form that cold night, going 4-for-12.

How did the coaches handle the long game?

PawSox manager Joe Morgan was ejected in the 22nd inning for arguing a bunt call, but not before he had sent reliever Luis Aponte home. Aponte had pitched four shutout innings in relief, striking out nine. Morgan let the right-hander leave to rest up in case he was needed the next day.

Any funny stories?

Aponte would have been better off staying at the ballpark. It was 3 a.m. Easter Sunday when he walked into his apartment. “Where have you been?” Xiomara Aponte asked angrily, to which her husband innocently responded, “At the ballpark.”“Like hell you have,” his wife replied. Luis spent the night on the couch.

The unluckiest person at McCoy that night was Red Wings radio broadcaster Bob Drew. There was no bathroom in the press box and Drew was working alone so he didn’t have time to run down to the concourse. An empty soda cup came in handy as the innings dragged by.

In 2006, members of the Red Wings and Red Sox attended a reunion in Pawtucket to celebrate the 25th anniversary of that amazing game. Among the 360 fans from the Pawtucket-Providence area who attended the reunion was Carl Bishop, then 74. The retired chief executive of a Rhode Island hospital summed it up best for many when he told reporters: “I listened to that game on radio until it was tied after the ninth inning. I thought, ‘This game could go on forever,’ and I turned it off and went to sleep. And I was glad, because it did go on forever.”

Did the fans stay and were the concessions open?

According to an article on the National Baseball Hall of Fame website, by the time the game was called on Easter Sunday morning, the crowd had dwindled form 1,740 fans to 19.

"Only one concession stand was open, offering free coffee and hot chocolate, the stadium music had been turned off and the reporters had a pool in the press box to guess when the inning number and the temperature would be equal."

With reports from The Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, New York.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Remembering longest baseball game, PawSox vs. Red Wings, 45 years later

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