Random thoughts on baseball's longest game & Tin Lizzy lawn care

Looks like it’s yet another day at The Tin Lizzy where it’s just me and Buck — and you know what that means.

Every toilet seat in the building is UP!

Because you just never know …

• I’m about finished with the best book I’ve read in 10 years. It’s “Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption & Baseball’s Longest Game,” by Dan Barry (2012). I’ve read a lot of great books during that time, but this is the first one since Tony Horwitz’s “Confederates in the Attic” that makes me want to buy by the box to hand out to friends. It’s that good.

• If you happen to see Buck, be sure to tell him how nice The Tin Lizzy lawn looks. It was mowed over the weekend and he takes great pride in its appearance. That’s it in the picture.

• The longest game in professional history happened April 18, 1981, at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, between the Rochester Red Wings and the hometown Red Sox. The game included future Hall of Famers Cal Ripken and Wade Boggs. It was supposed to start at 7:30, but was delayed 30 minutes to correct a lighting malfunction. Once it “finally” got underway, it went for the next eight hours until it was suspended in the 32nd inning at 4:08 a.m. It was so cold that players began burning bats and benches in trash barrels to warm their hands.

• Some day I’m going to take a lawn chair, a blanket, a beach umbrella, spread ‘em all out on the Tin lawn and have a little picnic.

•Pawtucket pitcher Luis Aponte was pulled from the game at 3 a.m. He went home to find his wife was furious and, suspecting he’d been out drinking, wouldn’t let him in. “She said there was no way a stupid baseball game would ever go that late on Easter morning,” he said. Refused entry and with everyplace closed, where did Aponte go? “Back to the ballpark to watch the end of the game.”

• The Tin lawn would make a newsworthy offbeat cemetery for maybe three guys all nicknamed “Slim” or one freakishly tall dude nicknamed “Stretch.”

• My gypsy parking lot book sale can be deemed a success. Sold 14 books and was cheered by all the friendly encouragement.

• You can protest the quarantine closures etc., but you should sign an affidavit stating that if you catch the coronavirus you will agree to not seek treatment in a hospital until those who adhered to recommended considerations have been treated and all the doctors and nurses get to stay home for two weeks until they’re relaxed and caught up on NetFlix.

• It was my turn to pick the movie the other night. I took a chance and picked “Terms of Endearment,” 1983 best picture winner. It was generally well-received. I like it alot. I’d forgotten it was written by “Lonesome Dove” author Larry McMurtry.. I can never think of McMurtry without recalling him saying when he was growing up in West Texas it was so desolate his phone number was 10.

• When Boggs, regarded as a selfish show-boat by Pawtucket teammates, drove in the tying run 21st inning, he said, “There was all this commotion in the dugout. I couldn’t tell if they wanted to hug me for tying the game or slug me for tying the game.”

• Rochester outfielder Dallas Williams set a still-standing record for futility by going 0-for-15 at the plate causing sportswriters to say “he had a whole bad month in one night.”

• For the record, my phone number growing up was 412 561-0410. I still call it once in a while to see who has it now. No one’s ever answered.

• Only 17 fans remained through the entire game. Major League Baseball rewarded them each with lifetime passes to any game. The gesture caused Pittsburgh broadcaster Beano Cook to remark, “Haven’t they suffered enough?’

• After a string of frantic calls, the league president suspended the game after eight hours. The game resumed June 23 with Pawtucket needing just 18 minutes to win in the 33rd inning. Future Met star Bob Ojeda was the winning pitcher; Rochester’s Steve Grilli was the losing pitcher. He’s the father of former Pirate standout Jason Grilli.

• Sorry, this went on a little longer than I expected, but these things happen in bloggin' and baseball. 

Hoping for Game 7 extra-extra innings

(665 words)

I’m thinking of DVRing tonight’s World Series game 7 and watching just two pitches every night until the game’s concluded about four months from now.

See, I like to savor my baseball.

No matter who wins tonight, I lose. I’ll be without baseball until pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training Feb. 11.

But I recognize inherent flaws in my plan.

First of all, I’d have to avoid all sports news or risk getting blindsided with a spoiler of historic proportions.

Second, I could be settling in to watch two pivotal bottom-of-the-eighth inning pitches in late January and find the whole ingenious project ruined when my daughter deletes the game to make room for a “My Little Pony” episode she’s already seen 79 times but simply must see again. 

Third, I’d have to stop going to the bar where sports talk dominates, and if there’s one thing I need to help get me through winter without baseball, it’s bar banter.

I think I’m drawn to baseball because it’s maybe the most sublime waste of time man’s ever invented. 

Each of the 30 teams plays 162 games. That’s 2,430 regular season games, with about 40 October playoff contests. With 25 men on each roster, that’s about 121,500 human interest stories right there. Some players win, some lose. Some perform heroically, some can’t hit the cut-off man.

Throw in a supporting cast of inept managers, drunken fans, horny groupies and gaffe-prone team announcers and it’s like reading the Bible while some unseen organist plays “Take Me Out To the Ballgame.”

It’s a cornucopia of meaningless conversation. That’s something I relish.

So many conversations these days are like warfare. The combatants concede no ground and will talk/shout until their opponent either submits or dies.

People involved in baseball conversations are more philosophical and enjoy sprinkling their insights with trivia useful to other baseball people.

And unlike nearly everything else in life, baseball is barely troubled about how long it takes to play baseball. Some see that as a flaw. They are mistaken.

It is a virtue.

A baseball game could conceivably last forever. That’s why when I tell I tell my wife I’m going to attend a baseball game, she knows there’s a chance she might never see me again.

This would be different from what happened last week to a 53-year-old father at a Denver Bronco game. He said he was going to the bathroom — and just disappeared. There was no trace of him. No call. No hospital admission. No suicide note blaming Roger Goodell for ruining the NFL.

Thankfully, he was found about 100 miles south of Denver, alive and unharmed, five days after the game’s final whistle. No explanations were forthcoming so we’re left to assume the lines to the men’s rooms that night were just really, really long.

It’d be different at a baseball game. 

The longest game I’ve ever attended was 16-inning marathon in 1997 when the Pirates beat — who else? — the Chicago Cubs. We were there for 7 1/2 hours.

We had no intention of leaving, even though MLB rules cruelly require the teams stop serving beer after the 7th inning. At the end me and my buddies congratulated ourselves for having stayed mostly alert for the whole thing with only a couple of brief naps.

I invite you to read the top link below to learn stories of what happened in 1981when two minor league teams featuring future HOFers Cal Ripken and Wade Boggs played a game that lasted 33 1/3 innings.

My dream is to attend a baseball game that never ends.

In fact, that’s in some ways my idea of heaven. The green grass, the crack of the bat, the smell of the popcorn and all that glorious ballpark humanity.

Maybe that’s what’s in store for tonight.

Maybe we’re all about to be treated to one of the greatest baseball games ever played.

That’d be great.

I just hope I don’t snooze through the end.

Related . . .

A great day for baseball! Let’s play 2! Or 3!

The last angry man(ager): MLB’s replay mistake

Priorities: Work or cheap beer baseball?

I cry over commercials (farewell, Cap’n Jeter)

Roberto Clemente, Mr. 3,000

Taking pregnant women out to the ol’ ballgame

A great day for baseball! Let's play 2! Or 3! . . .

(712 words)

The longest game in professional baseball history was Easter weekend 1981 between the Triple A International League Rochester Red Wings and the Pawtucket Red Sox. It lasted more than nine hours over 33 innings.

Today, I hope the record is broken by the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals.

Twice!

If that happens, I won’t be home until sometime Thursday afternoon.

And that would be fine with me.

I woke up this morning realizing today could be one of the best non-family days of my life. My buddy called with a ticket for today’s doubleheader at PNC Park between the teams with the two best records.

Who during spring training ever would have thought one of those teams would be the Pirates?

Not me, certainly.

The Pirates streak of consecutive losing seasons is 20 years old, the longest futility streak in professional sports.

That’s why I’m hoping today’s doubleheader will be such an extra-inning extravaganza. I feel like baseball owes us. 

The Pirates last night crept to within one-half game of first place after lambasting the proud and tough St. Louis Cardinals, 9-2.

And does reading the word “lambast” make anyone else hungry for gyro? Does it to me every time.

Maybe I’ll have one at the ballpark today. Heck, maybe I’ll have three.

Even without extra innings, I’ll be at what is widely regarded as baseball’s most beautiful ballpark for eight hours, roughly the equivalent of the epic minor league in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, McCoy Stadium.

The ’81 game inspired the 2012 Dan Barry book, “Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption and Baseball’s Longest Game.” I intend to read it one of these days. Here’s some facts from the game:

• The game featured two eventual all-time greats, Cal Ripkin Jr. and Wade Boggs. When Boggs’s father asked him how he did, he said, “I got four hits.” His father thought that was great. “Then I told him I’d had 12 at bats.”

• The start of the game was delayed 25 minutes to correct an issue regarding stadium lighting.

• The International League had recently approved a standard curfew meaning that games would be suspended at 12:50 a.m., but umpire Dennis Cregg’s rule book was printed prior to the rule’s activation.

• There’s a Pirate connection to the historic game: The losing pitcher was Rochester’s Steve Grilli, father of injured Pirate ace closer Jason Grilli.

• It was so cold in Rhode Island that night that players from both teams began burning broken bats for firewood. When all the broken bats had been burnt, they began dismantling the wooden benches and throwing them on the fire.

• Boggs hit a run in the bottom of the 21st inning that tied the game for Pawtucket. “When I got to the bench,” he said, “I didn’t know if my teammates wanted to hug me or slug me.”

• By 4 a.m., players from both teams described themselves as “delirious” from exhaustion. 

• The league president Harold Cooper was reached in bed at 3:45 a.m. and told the game was still going on. Horrified, he ordered that play be halted at the conclusion of the current inning. The game was ordered to resume during a rematch series on June 23. It would end that night after just one inning that took 18 minutes to complete.

• Players departing the stadium reported seeing Christian worshippers heading to Easter sunrise services as they were heading home from the ballpark.

• The initial game was attended by 1,740 fans, only 19 of whom remained in their seats when play was suspended at 4:07 a.m. Those 19 received lifetime passes to McCoy Stadium.

• Umpire Cregg set a still-existing record for longest plate appearance: 882 pitches (60 strike outs) over 8 hours and 25 minutes. Cregg had chosen that game to take his young nephew, David, and the boy was one of those 19 who received a lifetime pass.

• Cregg has told reporters he doesn’t think his nephew has in 32 years ever set foot in another ballpark.

So there’s something for those of you who, like me, can’t get enough baseball.

If any of that happens starting today, I promise I’ll provide a full report the morning after I return from the ballpark.

And I hope that means Friday.

Related . . .

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I hate the Chicago Cubs

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