| I Don't Care If I Ever Get Back: Marathons Lasting 20 Or More Innings |
| By The SABR Office |
“It is the mark of an instructed mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits, and not to seek exactness when only an approximation of the truth is possible.” --- Aristotle
Baseball is thankfully free of artificial boundaries of time which confine other sports. This freedom helps to shape the unique magical charm that is an evening at the ballpark. Fans never know whether it will be a two-hour squeaker or whether they may be enchanted until past sunrise by the first-ever wild twelve-hour 46-inning slugfest.
In the bottom of the seventh, baseball fans world-wide stand up to sing Albert von Tilzer’s music and Jack Norworth’s lyrics for the 1908 baseball anthem, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”. When games go into extra innings, the song is sung again, with much more meaning, in the bottom of the 14th, bottom of the 21st, bottom of the 28th, etc.:
Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd,
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don't care if I EVER get back.
We have made all of Phil Lowry's article available as PDF files at right. You have the option of downloading:
- The article itself (41 Pages)
- Appendix One, Listing by date, inning, and league of all 20+ inning games (84 Pages)
- Appendix Two, Listing the chronological evolution of the record for the longest game (16 Pages)
- Appendix Three, Listing first and last ever games of X innings and shortest games (21 Pages)
- Appendix Four, Listing ballparks and cities hosting the most marathon games (1 Page)
- Appendix Five, Listing the record long major league extra inning game(s) by league (1 Page)
- Appendix Six, Listing number of marathon games by league (4 Pages)
- Appendix Seven, Listing by date and inning all 26+ inning doubleheader marathons, as well as the chronological evolution of the record (5 Pages)
- Appendix Eight, Listing by date and inning all marathon triple, quadruple, and sextupleheaders, as well as the chronological evolution of the records (10 Pages)
- Appendix Nine, Listing marathons outside the USA (2 Pages)
- Appendix Ten, Listing various information on rain delays (17 Pages)
- Appendix Eleven, Listing information on runs scored per inning (3 Pages)
- Appendix Twelve, Listing theoretical and empirical data on the possibility of marathon games going X number of innings (1 Page)
All questions, suggestions, comments, and corrections on this research should be referred to Phil Lowry at plowry1176@aol.com.
| | Created On: 2005-03-04 |
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Page Link: http://www.sabr.org/sabr.cfm?a=cms,c,1196,34,0
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