I was on the phone with my buddy Brando today. Turns out he’s back east in Boston. He told me he’s there for his girlfriend’s daughter’s wedding. I was like yeah, yeah, but are you going to a Red Sox game while you’re out there?
Well, no but he’s going to see their Triple-A team, the Pawtucket Red Sox play.
I told him the one piece of trivia I can remember about the Pawsox is that they played in professional baseball’s longest game. That spurred me to look up the info on the web. One quick Google search and the info wasn’t hard to find.
It was a game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings on April 18th, 1981 in Pawtucket. The game was completed 2 months later on June 23. Ironically, from that point, it took only 18 minutes for the PawSox to win the game. Interestingly, losing pitcher Steve Grilli wasn’t even with the Red Wings when the game started in April.
Some of the players whose names may ring a bell include:
- Cal Ripken
- Wade Boggs
- Dave Valle
- Rich Gedman
- Manny Sarmiento
- Bruce Hurst
- Bob Ojeda
Some of the records set:
• MOST PUTOUTS – one team – 99 (Pawtucket)
• MOST PUTOUTS – both teams – 195 TIME – 8:25
• MOST AT BATS – one team – 114 (Pawtucket)
• MOST STRIKE OUTS – one team – 34 (Rochester Batters)
• MOST AT BATS – both teams – 219
• MOST STRIKE OUTS – both teams – 60
• MOST ASSISTS – both teams – 88
• MOST “CHANCES ACCEPTED” – one team – 142 (Rochester)
• MOST “CHANCES ACCEPTED” – both teams – 283
• MOST INNINGS – 33 PITCHES THROWN – Rochester 423, Pawtucket 459, Total 882
• MOST AT BATS – Dave Koza, Lee Graham, Chico Walker – 14 (Pawtucket)
• MOST PLATE APPEARANCES – Tom Eaton, Cal Ripken, Dallas Williams – 15 (Rochester)
Two of my favorite quotes (check out this web page for more):
“When we walked off the field at 4 o’clock in the morning, it was like, ‘You mean we’re not done with the game yet?'”
–Pawtucket catcher Rich Gedman“A lot of people were saying , ‘Yeah, yeah, we tied it, we tied it!’ And then they said, ‘Oh, no, what did you do? We could have gone home!'”
–Pawtucket’s Wade Boggs on his game-tying hit in the 21st inning
Check out Pawtucket’s web site for the box score.