August 22, 1917: ‘Some Game!’ Brooklyn wins after 22 innings

On a sultry Wednesday afternoon at Ebbets Field, the Robins and Pirates played for 4 hours and 15 minutes in the first game of a doubleheader.1 A “paltry 1,500 ‘bushers’ were on hand to appreciate” the longest game in the 41-year history of the National League.2 A Brooklyn newspaper account noted that “forty-seven safeties, one hundred fifty-nine ‘at bats,’ one hundred and thirty-one putouts, sixty-nine assists and thirty-eight left on bases were employed in the conduct of this diversion.”3

The 1916 National League champion Robins were managed by Wilbert Robinson.4 Expectations ran high, but disintegrated as the season progressed. On August 22 the Robins were 53-58, in sixth place, 18 games behind the first-place New York Giants. Rube Marquard was a valuable pitcher with a 12-8 record. Left fielder Jim Hickman was considered the faster runner in baseball, a former college sprinter who held “many minor records to his credit.”5 The starting pitcher was 25-year-old rookie curveballer Leon Cadore. Due to injuries, the team was short of infielders who were “as scarce as kind-hearted U-Boat captains.”6

The last-place Pirates were an abysmal 36-76, 35½ games behind the Giants. The team was on its third manager of the year, Hugo Bezdek.7 The football coach in Bedzek “instilled into the motley crew he has gathered … never-say-die-spirit.”8 Fresh from setting the Pirates record for ERA in 1916, southpaw control artist Wilbur Cooper took the mound.9 Unheralded rookie Jake Pitler manned second.10

Cooper had previously dominated the Robins, but seemed to feel the effect of his 14-inning “grind with the Quakers” in his last start.11 The Robins “found Cooper easy and the Pirates defense [sic] shaky” over the first three innings as they jumped to a 5-1 lead.12 In the first, the Robins scored on a single to center by Ivy Olson, a sacrifice by Jake Daubert, and Casey Stengel‘s RBI single into left.

Cooper’s struggles continued in the second. Hickman singled to center and advanced on Frank O’Rourke‘s sacrifice. Shortstop Chuck Ward booted Otto Miller‘s grounder. Cadore singled to center, scoring Hickman as Miller was thrown out at third by Max Carey. Cadore took second on the throw and scored on Olson’s double over third base.

The Pirates answered with a run in the third when Carson Bigbee singled to center and Cadore “winged Carey.”13 Bigbee went to third on Tony Boeckel‘s fly to Stengel in right and scored on Ward’s infield out. The Robins responded with two runs in the bottom of the third. Hi Myers reached base with a scratch hit. Stengel singled to center. They advanced by Jimmy Johnston’s sacrifice.14 Hickman’s “timely thump” drove the runners home to make it 5-1.15

In the sixth inning, curveballer Elmer Jacobs relieved Cooper, who in his five innings pitched gave up 11 hits and “five sounds.”16 Jacobs pitched 16⅔ innings, facing 66 batters and giving up 17 hits with three walks and one strikeout. A fluke play cost him the game.

Cadore appeared sharp, “settled beyond the slightest doubt.”17 But Bezdek’s Pirates fought back to tie the game as Cadore’s precision abandoned him. The Pirates scored four runs as the “Buccaneers pounced on the booty exposed by Cadore’s carelessness.”18 In the sixth with one out, Pitler and Bill Wagner singled to center and right respectively. After Cooper fouled out, Charlie Jackson walked to load the bases. Bigbee’s “slow grounder took a funny hop[,]” bouncing over Johnston’s head at second for a single.19 Pitler and Wagner scored on the play.

The Pirates added tying runs in the seventh. Boeckel started the rally with a Texas Leaguer over second base. He was forced at second by Ward. After Ray Miller struck out, Ward went to second on a muffed pickoff play. Pitler doubled, scoring Ward, and Wagner drove in Pitler with a single to left. The score was 5-5. For the next 13 innings, no one scored.

Relieving Cadore, spitballer Larry Cheney20 “joined the embroglio” in the eighth, pitching 13 innings with no runs on nine hits, one walk, and seven strikeouts.21 Each team was “kept from scoring by clever pitching and spectacular fielding of both nines.”22 In the 13th, with Bigbee on first, Honus Wagner made one of his last appearances, pinch-hitting for Boeckel. Cheney grabbed his bunt and tossed to Myers at second, forcing Bigbee.23 Hickman squandered an opportunity to end the game in the 14th. With the bases loaded and one out, he hit a soft grounder to pitcher Jacobs, who turned a 1-2-3 double play.

In the 17th Hickman beat out a hit to third and reached second on third baseman Boeckel’s errant toss to first. With one out, Hickman advanced on Miller’s groundout to short. With Cheney at the plate, Hickman attempted to steal home. Umpire Bill Klem ruled that Hickman had been tagged out on the foot by catcher Bill Wagner.24 Hickman “vociferously maintained” that he missed the bag and got up to touch the plate.25 The Robins dugout let Klem hear their disapproval. Klem called time, approached the Robins bench and “banished every soul except your Uncle Wilbert Robinson and the bat boy” to the “outer darkness under the stand.”26

In the 20th, Cheney singled through the box with one out.27 On Olson’s grounder to second baseman Ward, Cheney “had victory in mind and made a head-first slide for the bag” to break up the double play.28 While turning the double play, Ward collided with Cheney’s head as “he came plunging into second and stretched out cold. Larry was brought around, but was so badly shaken up that he had to retire.”29 Marquard came in relief and yielded “a hit and a pass in his two innings administration.”30

In the top of the 22nd, Marquard struck out Jacobs and Lee King. Bigbee singled but Carey fouled out to Miller to end the frame. When Jacobs came up, the sparse crowd “were quick to realize the exceptional merit of Jacobs’ slabwork. … [H]e received a tribute which he always will remember.”31

In the bottom of the inning with one out, Hickman received one of the three walks issued by Jacobs and went to second on O’Rourke’s single to left. Otto Miller hit a hard grounder to Adam DeBus at third who tossed to Pitler, forcing the sliding O’Rourke. Without hesitation, “at the crash of the blow, Hickman dug in his spikes into the ground and was at third before O’Rourke was expunged.”32 Hickman turned the corner around third, stopping “just a fraction of a second to look over his shoulder at the play at second base,” and kept going.33 Pitler “calmly held the ball in his hand.”34 Pitler saw Hickman rounding third, froze as he “evidently thought that Hickman would not attempt to make home and deliberated whether to throw to first.”35 The hesitation allowed Hickman to slide safely home, beating Pitler’s wild throw to catcher Walter Schmidt. The Robins’ win resulted from “five seconds of hesitancy by Pitler.”36 Pitler’s lapse “lost the battle, and Jacobs deserves reams of praise.”37 Hickman forced the issue by “the exceptional celerity with which he went from second to third.”38

As Hickman scored, “a tall, bronzed Bronzed Brooklynite who was warming up in right field, tossed his cap in the air and let his roar mingle with the exulting paeans of the fans.”39 Jack Coombs was relieved, as the game was “getting all too close for comfort to his own world’s long distance record game of twenty-four innings.”40

The team played “twenty-two innings of heartbreaking baseball” as the National League record “for long-distance games was shattered to smithereens.”41 Jacobs was tagged with his 16th loss against four wins. Marquard earned his 13th win of the season. The game broke the record of the July 17, 1914, Pirates-Giants 21-inning marathon.42

Umpire Klem ordered the second game to start to at 5:56 P.M. Twilight burgeoned as two scoreless innings were completed. Klem surveyed the skies and “stentatorianly announced that Flatbush had a surfeit of the national pastime for one afternoon.”43 Klem called the game, “evidently conscience-stricken with the realization that the teams had already put in a day’s work.”44 It was considered his first decision that was met with approval.

Marquard added to his list of records as winning pitcher in the longest National League game ever played to date.45 The two teams had played 35 innings before the game was decided, breaking the previous record of 26 innings.46 The Pirates established the major-league record for consecutive innings played in a given period with 59 in four games, breaking the mark of 43.47

The game was the first for 8-year-old Irving Piken. The memories diminished with the passage of time. In 2017, at the age of 108, he noted, “ … I don’t recall too much about the proceedings.”48

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and MLB.com.

Photo credit: Larry Cheney, Trading Card Database.

NOTES

1 The series started on Monday with a Pirates 10-inning 1-0 win followed by a 13-inning 3-3 tie called on account of darkness, resulting in the doubleheader being scheduled.

2 Charles A. Taylor, “Robins Set Extra Frame Record in Real National League Thriller,” New York Tribune, August 23, 1917: 13.

3 “Record Dodger-Pirate Struggle Replete with Unusual Features,” Brooklyn Daily Times, August 23, 1917: 6; The game featured 160 putouts, 70 assists, and 40 left on base.

4 From 1914 to 1931, one of Brooklyn’s nicknames was Robins, after the team’s longtime manager Wilbert Robinson. They were also called the Superbas and the Dodgers.

5 Rice, “Superbas Winners in 22 Innings and Break League Record,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 23, 1917: 14. [The Eagle identified the writer only as “Rice.” It was likely longtime Eagle sportswriter Thomas S. Rice.]

6 “Record Dodger-Pirate Struggle Replete with Unusual Features.”

7 Bezdek is the only person in history who coached both a professional football and a baseball team. He coached the NFL’s Cleveland Rams in 1937-1938. During his baseball career he also worked as a college football coach. He was 105-46-13 at Arkansas, Oregon, and Penn State. In 1918 he coached the Mare Island Marines to victory in the 1918 Rose Bowl, then known as the Tournament East-West Football Game. He managed the Pirates through 1919, compiling a 166-187 record.

8 Taylor, “Robins Set Extra Frame Record.”

9 Cooper holds the franchise single-season record for ERA (1.87 in 1916) and the all-time records for victories (202) and complete games (263).

10 Pitler played in 111 games, mostly at second base, for the Pirates in 1917 and 1918. His career batting average was .232; of his 89 hits, only 13 were for extra bases, and none were home runs. After playing two games in 1918, he was sent down to Jersey City. On his way to New Jersey, he took a side trip to play in an “outlaw” baseball league in Pennsylvania. As a result, he incurred a nine-year ban from playing for a major-league farm team. Pitler later became a minor-league manager for the Brooklyn Dodgers and was a Dodgers coach from 1947 to 1957.

11 Charles J. Doyle, “Dodgers Beat Pirates 6-5,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 23, 1917: 8.

12 George Underwood, “Superbas Triumph in Twenty-Second,” Sun (New York), August 23, 1917: 11.

13 Underwood; in 11 at-bats, Bigbee accounted for six of the Pirates’ 19 hits.

14 The Robins had seven sacrifice hits in the game.

15 Underwood.

16 Doyle, “Dodgers Beat Pirates 6-5.”

17 Taylor.

18 “Record Dodger-Pirate Struggle Replete with Unusual Features.”

19 Ed F. Balinger, “Pirates Lose 22-Inning Game to Dodgers,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, August 23, 1917: 8.

20 Over a three-year span, 1912-1914, Cheney was one of the National League’s most durable and effective pitchers, racking up more than 300 innings each season.

21 “Record Dodger-Pirate Struggle Replete With Unusual Features.”

22 Taylor.

23 At 43, Honus Wagner was in his last season, a part-time player.

24 Balinger.

25 “Klem Went on a Rampage When Hickman Stole Home,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 23, 1917: 14.

26 “Klem Went on a Rampage.”

27 In the 18th inning, Cheney struck out. He was the only Robin to strike out in the game.

28 Doyle, “Dodgers Beat Pirates 6-5.”

29 Underwood, “Superbas Triumph in Twenty-Second.”

30 Underwood.

31 Doyle.

32 “Dodger’ Victory Sets New League Record,” Brooklyn Standard Union, August 23, 1917: 10.

33 “Robins Make New Long-Game Record,” New York Times, August 23, 1917: 15.

34 “Jimmy Hickman’s Steal Home Wins Record Game for Game for Robins,” New York Evening World, August 23, 1917: 12.

35 “Robins Make New Long-Game Record.”

36 “Dodger’ Victory Sets New League Record.”

37 Taylor.

38 “Rice.”

39 Underwood.

40 Underwood. The longest game at the time was the September 1, 1906, 24-inning contest in which the Philadelphia Athletics defeated the Boston Americans, 4-1. Coombs was the winning pitcher.

41 “Robins Make New Long-Game Record.” The Robins played in the longest game in major-league baseball on May 1, 1920. Cadore was the starting pitcher against the Boston Braves. Cadore and Braves starter Joe Oeschger each pitched the entire game before it was called for darkness tied at 1-1 after 26 innings.

42 Larry Doyle hit a two-run home run in the 21st inning to give the Giants a 3-1 win. Marquard pitched a complete-game victory.

43 “Record Dodger-Pirate Struggle Replete with Unusual Features.”

44 “Robins Make New Long-Game Record.”

45 Winning pitcher Marquard held the record for the most consecutive games won in a season, tied with Tim Keefe at 19; and the most consecutive wins from the start of the season.

46 The Robins and Pirates played three extra-inning games in a row for a total of 45 innings.

47 “Feature Facts of Record Game,” New York Tribune, August 23, 1917: 13. Pitler set a record for putouts in extra-inning games by a second baseman (15). Bigbee set a record with 11 at-bats in a game.

48 Rachel Marcus, “Oldest Living Dodgers Fan, 108, Always Excited To See Jackie Robinson,” ESPN.com, April 15, 2017. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/19136234/oldest-living-dodgers-fan-going-strong-favorite-player-jackie-robinson, accessed December 10, 2019; Jennifer Karmarkar, “111-year-old Laguna Woods resident was the oldest man in U.S.,” Orange County Register (Anaheim, California), March 10, 2020. https://www.ocregister.com/2020/03/10/oldest-man-111-dies-in-laguna-woods/, accessed May 4, 2020. At 111, Irving Piken was believed to be the oldest man in the United States, according to the Gerontology Research Group. He died on February 23, 2020.