Marathon games for starting hurlers are ancient history - Baseball

Baseball Digest, Nov, 2000 by Jerome Holtzman

More than 80 years ago, Dodgers' Leon Cadore and Braves' Joe Oeschger hooked-up for a 26-inning game that ended in a tie

IN TODAY'S GAME OF BULLPEN SPECIALISTS, a manager often tells his starting pitcher "Give us six or seven good innings and we'll take it from there."

The complete game is a dinosaur. In 1995, the Colorado Rockies had only one completion. Through August 27, 2000, a complete game occurs once every 23 contests. The biggest rarity is the game when both starting pitchers go the distance--12 in `99, in an aggregate schedule of 4,586 games, 10 times fewer than grand slam home runs.

This is brought to mind because last May 1 was the 80th anniversary of baseball's longest game, a 26-inning marathon between Brooklyn and Boston. It was called because of darkness with the score tied 1-1.

What made that game especially memorable is that the starting pitchers, Leon Cadore of the Dodgers and Joe Oeschger of the Braves, worked the entire 26 innings. One more inning and they would have pitched the equivalent of three games.

It was in 1920, in the midst of the labor movement. The New York Times responded with an editorial titled "Overtime Without Pay." The editorialist, unimpressed by the endurance record, commented:

"Pitchers in these times are fragile creatures, most of whom think that nine innings in a day is about enough and that two appearances in the same week are as much as can be expected from the hardiest." He recalled that Charlie "Old Hoss" Radbourne, who won 60 games in 1884, pitched and won nearly every day for as much as two weeks in a stretch.

It was the first day of daylight savings time in Boston. The game was played at Braves Field in a dreary mist before a crowd of 2,000. Time of the game was three hours and fifty minutes, approximately an hour and 15 minutes for each nine innings. There were 168 at-bats, nine walks and six sacrifices, a total of 182 batters faced. Walter Holke, the Braves' first baseman, had 42 putouts.

Cadore and Oeschger met a week later.

"How do you feel?" Cadore asked.

"I've been waiting to see how you feel," Oeschger replied. "We've ruined ourselves."

The popular opinion was they had thrown their arms out, that neither would recover from their heroic duel. It was an erroneous assumption. The next year Oeschger was 20-14, his only 20-victory season. The following season, Cadore, essentially a .500 pitcher, was 13-14, two wins less than his career high.

Cadore was given a 1-0 lead in the fifth. Catcher Ernie Krueger walked, took second on a fielder's choice and scored on Ivy Olson's single to left. The Braves tied the score in the sixth. Wally Cruise tripled to the foot of the center field scoreboard. Holke lined to left for what seemed to be a hit, but Zack Wheat made a shoestring catch and almost doubled Cruise off third. Tony Boeckel brought Cruise home with a single to center.

Neither team scored again. The Dodgers had their biggest scare in the ninth when the Braves filled the bases with one out. Charley Pick then grounded into a side-retiring double play.

The Dodgers also loaded the bases with one out in the 17th, their final threat. Harold Elliott, next up, tapped back to the mound and into a force at the plate, Oeschger to catcher Hank Gowdy who fired to first baseman Holke in an attempt for a double play. When Holke fumbled the throw, Ed Konetchy tried to score from second but was out, Holke to Gowdy, who made a diving tag for the third out.

Instead of weakening, Cadore and Oeschger grew stronger as the game progressed. Neither allowed a hit in the last six innings. The National League record for longevity was broken in the 23d inning, the American League mark in the 25th.

The reporter covering for The New York Times wrote: "After the 26th inning, umpire (Barry) McCormick yawned twice and observed that it was nearly bedtime. He didn't seem particularly thrilled by what was going on. To him and his brother arbiter (Eugene) Hart, it was merely an infernally long day's work. McCormick held out: his hand in the gloaming and thereupon called the game to the satisfaction of himself and Mr. Hart and to the chagrin of everybody else concerned."

In response to my query, part of a letter received from Cadore, dated February 10, 1956, follows:

"Some of the ballplayers, particularly Ivy Olson, begged the umps to let it go one more inning but they overruled him and called it. Maybe it was just as well. Just what would have happened if they had lights in those days, is hard to tell.

"What most people don't recollect is that about seven days before that game, Oeschger and I tangled down here in Brooklyn, the game went 11 innings, and I was the lucky one in that, beating them 1-0.

"You ask, do I think the long game had any effect on my arm? I couldn't raise my right arm for a couple of days after the big one, and as far as sleeping for a couple of days, well, that is for the birds. Sure, I was fired and did a little sleeping, which reminds me that Wilbert Robinson, our manager, in the 20th inning, asked if I was getting tired.