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The Pawtucket Red Sox and Rochester Red Wings, two teams from the triple-A International League, played the longest game in professional baseball history in 1981 at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

The game began on Saturday, April 18, 1981, and continued through the night and into Easter morning before finally being suspended. Although most leagues have a curfew rule that would have suspended the game, the rule book that the home plate umpire had that night did not contain one. So the teams continued playing until the president of the league, Harold Cooper, was finally reached on the phone sometime after 3 a.m. Finally at 4:07, at the end of the 32nd inning, the game was stopped. At this point, there were 19 fans left in the seats, all of whom were given lifetime passes to McCoy Stadium.[1]

The game resumed on the evening of Tuesday, June 23, the next time the Red Wings were in town. A sellout crowd and news media from around the world were on hand, partly because the major leagues were on strike at the time. On that evening, it took just one inning and 18 minutes to settle the game, with Pawtucket's Dave Koza driving in Bill McDaniel for the winning run in the bottom of the 33rd.

Records set in the game

• Most putouts by one team in one game: 99 (PAW)
• Most total putouts in one game: 195
• Most at-bats for one team in one game: 114 (PAW)
• Most total at-bats in one game: 219
• Most strikeouts by one team in one game: 34 (ROC)
• Most total strikeouts in one game: 60
• Most strikeouts by one player in a game: 8, Russ Laribee (PAW)
• Most total assists in one game: 88
• Most innings: 33
• Most at-bats by one player in one game: 14, Dave Koza, Lee Graham, Chico Walker (all PAW)
• Most plate appearances by one player in one game: 15, Tom Eaton, Cal Ripken Jr, Dallas Williams (all ROC)
• Total time for one game: 8 hours, 25 minutes

Line Score

McCoy Stadium, Pawtucket, Rhode Island

Hitting Line

Pitching Line

Game notes and statistics

• The start of the original game was delayed for about half an hour due to a problem with the lights at McCoy Stadium.
• Steve Grilli, the losing pitcher for Rochester, was not a member of the Red Wings when the game started on April 18.
• Jim Umbarger pitched ten innings of scoreless relief for Rochester.
• Rochester's Dave Huppert caught 31 of the 33 innings.
• Dallas Williams of the Red Wings went 0-13 at the plate. Williams was credited with two sacrifice bunts, and had, while not an official stat, 15 plate appearances without a hit. Williams' 0-13 stat is also a record in futility in any single professional baseball game.
• Russ Laribee of the PawSox went 0-11, striking out eight times, becoming the first player in history to record the double golden sombrero.
• Between the two teams, pitchers faced a total of 246 batters (219 AB, 23 BB, 4 HBP).
• A total of 1882 pitches were thrown.
• Pawtucket's Dave Koza had the most hits of any player in the game: five, including the game-winner.
• 53 runners were left on base (30 by Rochester and 23 by Pawtucket).
• Pawsox Manager Joe Morgan was ejected from the game by Home Plate Umpire Dennis Cregg. In a newspaper interview, Morgan claims that Cregg threw him out of the game "to impress his young nephew [David Cregg] who was in the stands".
• The temperature dropped into the 40's causing players in the dugouts to start small fires in metal trash cans using pieces of broken bats to keep warm.
• The total game time was 8 hours and 25 minutes.

Players involved

Two future Hall of Famers were part of the historic game. Cal Ripken, Jr., who was inducted in 2007, went 2-13 on the night playing third base for Rochester. Wade Boggs, who was inducted in 2005, played third base for Pawtucket and went 4-12 with a double and an RBI. (The Joe Morgan involved in this game was the manager, not the Hall-of-Fame player.) Ripken was the American League's Rookie-of-the-Year in 1982.

A number of other future major leaguers played in the game:

• From Pawtucket:
  • Bob Ojeda, the winner of the game after pitching a scoreless 33rd inning, would go on to pitch for 15 major league seasons, most notably for the New York Mets (going 18-5 in 1986 to help the team win the World Series that year), Boston Red Sox, and Los Angeles Dodgers. While many of Pawtucket's players would play key roles in the 1986 World Series as members of the Boston Red Sox, Ojeda would go on to play for their opponent, the New York Mets. He then became the lone survivor in a boat crash that claimed the lives of 2 other pitchers in spring training before Ojeda's first season with the Cleveland Indians.
  • Bruce Hurst pitched for 15 seasons in the majors for the Boston Red Sox and San Diego Padres. His career record was 145-113, a .562 winning percentage.
  • Rich Gedman caught for the Boston Red Sox for most of his 13-year major league career.
  • Marty Barrett played ten major league seasons at second base for the Boston Red Sox and San Diego Padres, hitting .278 for his career.
  • Chico Walker later played 11 seasons in the majors with the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, California Angels, and New York Mets.
  • Mike Smithson started 204 games for the Texas Rangers, Minnesota Twins, and Boston Red Sox.
  • Manny Sarmiento pitched in 228 major league games for the Cincinnati Reds, Seattle Mariners, and Pittsburgh Pirates.
  • Luis Aponte made 110 pitching appearances as a reliever with the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians.
  • Julio Valdez played 65 games with the Boston Red Sox, mostly serving as a shortstop and second baseman.

• From Rochester:
  • Floyd Rayford went on to play third base and catch for seven years with the Baltimore Orioles and the St. Louis Cardinals. His best year was 1985, when he hit .306 with 18 home runs and 48 RBI.
  • Jim Umbarger appeared in 133 games as a pitcher for the Texas Rangers and Oakland Athletics.
  • Steve Grilli (father of Jason Grilli) pitched in 70 games, mostly as a reliever for the Detroit Tigers.
  • Cliff Speck went on to pitch for the Atlanta Braves in 1986, appearing in 13 games, including one start.
  • Mark Corey played in 59 games in his three years as a Baltimore Oriole outfielder.
  • Bobby Bonner played for four years in the early '80s as a middle-infielder with the Baltimore Orioles.

See also

• 100 Inning Game - Longest amateur baseball game ever played (charitable event)

External links

• An account from the Pawtucket web site
• An account from the Rochester web site
• A Washington Post article published on the 25th anniversary of the game; featured on the front page of the Sports section on April 18, 2006
• Account from International League website, cached by the Internet Archive.

Some content from an anniversary article in the 2001 Pawtucket game program.