The Longest Game

The Longest Game

On May 1, 1920, fans at Braves Field in Boston settled in for what they thought would be a typical Saturday afternoon baseball game. Little did they know, they were about to witness a game that would go down in history as the longest professional baseball game ever played.

The Brooklyn Robins (later known as the Dodgers) faced off against the Boston Braves in what became an epic 26-inning marathon. The game began at 3:00 PM and didn't end until darkness fell at 6:50 PM. Remember, this was before the era of night games!

Both starting pitchers, Leon Cadore for Brooklyn and Joe Oeschger for Boston, pitched all 26 innings. This feat of endurance is unimaginable by today's standards. The game ended in a 1-1 tie, as the umpires called it due to darkness.

Brooklyn's run came courtesy of leadoff man Ivy Olson, who lined an RBI single over Hall of Fame shortstop Rabbit Maranville's head in the fifth. Boston's Tony Boeckel drove in the tying run with a single to center in the bottom of the sixth. The teams traded zeros for 20 innings until night fell at Braves Field.

The next day's New York Times story joked that umpire Barry McCormick "remembered that he had an appointment pretty soon with a succulent beefsteak. He wondered if it wasn't getting dark. He held out one hand as a test and decided that in the gloaming it resembled a Virginia ham. He knew it wasn't a Virginia ham and became convinced that it was too dark to play ball.

Thereupon, he called the game, to the satisfaction of himself and (fellow umpire Bob Hart) and the chagrin of everybody else concerned."

Incredibly, the entire game took only 3 hours and 50 minutes to play. Compare that to modern games, which often last over 3 hours for just 9 innings! This speaks volumes about the pace of play in that era.

While the record has since been broken for the longest professional game (a 33-inning minor league game in 1981), this 1920 marathon remains the longest major league game ever played.