July 27, 1969: Eighteen pitchers see duty during 20-inning Red Sox-Pilots battle

In their one-season history (1969) as an American League expansion franchise, the Seattle Pilots played 14 extra-inning games. On July 19 they hosted an 18-inning night game at Sicks’ Stadium. That game was suspended after 17 innings and completed the following day, with the Minnesota Twins winning, 11-7.1

After the Twins left town and the major leagues took the All-Star break, the Boston Red Sox arrived in Seattle.2 The Pilots won two of the first three games against the Red Sox, with the series finale on Sunday afternoon, July 27.

The game began with both teams in third place in their respective divisions; Boston was 13 games behind the first-place Baltimore Orioles in the American League East Division, and Seattle was 17½ games back of Minnesota in the AL West.

It ended nearly six hours after its first pitch, with 18 pitchers seeing action over 20 innings, in what turned out to be the longest game by innings of the 1969 major-league season—and the longest in the Pilots’ brief existence.

Pilots manager Joe Schultz had Marty Pattin start the game. The 26-year-old right-hander, who had joined the Pilots from the California Angels in the October 1968 expansion draft, entered the game with a 7-9 record and a 5.09 ERA. In his diary of the 1969 season, published as Ball Four, Pilots teammate Jim Bouton’s entry for July 26 reflected low expectations: “[t]he last time Marty Pattin had a bad game—and he’s had about eight in a row.”3

On this day, however, both Pattin and the starter for Dick Williams’s Red Sox, Ray Culp (14-6, 3.62), had very solid games.

At the end of eight innings, the score stood 1-1.

The lone Red Sox run had come in the top of the seventh on a two-out home run into the right-field seats by center fielder Reggie Smith. To that point, Pattin had allowed but two hits, a leadoff double off the right-field fence by Smith in the second inning and a leadoff single by shortstop Rico Petrocelli in the fifth.4

Culp did not allow a hit in the first four innings but got in trouble in the fifth, when the Pilots loaded the bases with no outs on a leadoff single, a double, and a base on balls. But the next two batters struck out, and center fielder Tommy Harper popped out to shortstop, stranding the runners.

Those were the only hits off Culp until Seattle tied the score in the bottom of the eighth. Tommy Harper hit a one-out double to left field, followed one out later by an RBI single to center by right fielder Steve Hovley.

At this point, the game turned into a parade of relief pitchers—and scoreless innings.

Seattle skipper Schultz turned to John Gelnar to pitch the ninth. The 26-year-old righty had lost seven decisions in a row (he was 2-8) and been assigned to the bullpen. Gelnar retired the Red Sox in order in the ninth. He gave up a two-out double to Petrocelli in the 10th but kept him at second. The Pilots had a single in the ninth and a single in the 10th against Culp, but no runs scored off him either.5

Both teams made pitching changes in the 11th. Seattle’s John O’Donoghue took over from Gelnar. He walked one Boston batter in the 11th and another in the 12th, but neither got past first base.

Sparky Lyle relieved Culp for the Red Sox. An 11th-inning walk was harmless. On his way to a 71-appearance season, third among AL relievers, Lyle walked another Pilot in the 12th, followed by a single by Harper, but retired John Donaldson on a comebacker for the final out.

In the 13th, Lyle walked a batter and gave up a two-out single to Jim Pagliaroni. Lee Stange relieved Lyle and got the final out, a force play at second base.

Jim Bouton pitched the 13th and 14th for Seattle. Boston third baseman Syd O’Brien singled in the 14th, but nothing came of it.

Lyle was done after three innings, and Vicente Romo became Boston’s fourth pitcher in the 14th. He gave up a leadoff single to Gordy Lund, then got the next two batters out. Rookie Bill Lee—at age 22 pitching in only his seventh major-league game, a year after the Red Sox had selected him from the University of Southern California in the amateur draft—relieved Romo, walked a man, but then got the final out.

The only batter to reach base in the 15th was Greg Goossen, drawing a leadoff walk from Lee, though Don Mincher hit a ball that might well have been a homer to right but for a strong headwind.6

Steve Barber became Seattle’s fifth pitcher. He got through the 16th, 17th, and 18th innings, touched for a single by Tom Satriano in the 17th and a single by O’Brien in the 18th.

The Pilots threatened in the 16th. Ron Kline relieved Bill Lee. Lund singled to lead off. After one out on a failed bunt, Harper walked. A passed ball let both runners move up. Donaldson was walked, loading the bases, and Bill Landis relieved Kline.

Hovley grounded to short, and Petrocelli thew home for the force, preventing the winning run from scoring. Goossen flied out to center to end the inning.

O’Brien singled again to lead off Boston’s 17th. Mike Andrews flied out and then Carl Yastrzemski hit into a 4-6-3 double play. Landis struck out three Seattle batters in the bottom of the inning, with just a Gus Gil single between the second and third K’s.

Reggie Smith singled to lead off the 18th. With two outs, George Scott was walked intentionally. Pinch-hitter Dick Schofield, batting for Landis, flied out to right.7

Jim Lonborg was pressed into action to pitch for Boston; he was their eighth pitcher of the game.8 A strikeout and two groundouts and the game moved to the 19th, still tied, 1-1.

After 10 scoreless innings, the Red Sox finally scored in the top of the 19th. Barber was still pitching for Seattle. With one out, O’Brien singled for the third time in his last three at-bats. With two outs, Yastrzemski doubled to right field—“lost in the sun” by Goossen—scoring O’Brien, but the Red Sox lost their chance for more runs when a “confused Yastrzemski stood by after rounding second and was tagged for the third out by Don Mincher.”9 It was Boston 2, Seattle 1.

Lonborg needed three outs to end the game but walked leadoff batter Hovley. Goossen sacrificed Hovley to second. Mincher struck out, but Pagliaroni—a former Red Sox catcher who had hit a game-tying 15th-inning homer off Minnesota’s Jim Kaat eight days earlier—singled to left-center and tied the game. Gil struck out, and the game went to the 20th.

Barber was out after five innings. Bob Locker, whose three innings of relief a day earlier had earned him the save, was Seattle’s sixth pitcher. Batting for himself, Lonborg singled. Petrocelli’s attempt at a sacrifice failed, and Lonborg was forced at second.

But right fielder Joe Lahoud, batting .192 when the day’s action began, homered into the bleachers in right field, giving the Red Sox a 4-2 lead.

After George Scott singled, Garry Roggenburk relieved Locker. A wild pitch allowed Scott to go to second. After he held there on a groundout, catcher Russ Gibson—who had come into the game as a pinch-hitter in the 16th—singled Scott home. It was 5-2, Red Sox.

As in the 19th, Lonborg was three outs from ending the marathon. He struck out the first two Pilots in the bottom of the 20th, but Tommy Harper homered to left-center, getting one run back. Donaldson walked on four pitches, but Hovley grounded out third to first. After 5 hours and 52 minutes, with about half the crowd of 9,670 still in the ballpark, it was over.10

In all, 45 players had appeared in the game, 24 Pilots and 21 Red Sox.11 A total of 18 pitchers saw action. Boston sent seven to the mound and used Mike Nagy as a pinch-runner. Seattle employed eight on the mound and both Fred Talbot and Gene Brabender as pinch-hitters.

The Pilots lasted in Seattle for only the 1969 season before moving to Milwaukee; this game went down as the lengthiest by innings in the team’s brief history. As of 2022, it ranked as tied for second in Red Sox franchise history.12 Of five all-time Red Sox games lasting 20 or more innings, this 1969 game was the only one that Boston won.13

Despite the win, Dick Williams was apparently in a somewhat irascible mood afterward. He told reporters to “get it over with so’s I can blow this joint. Looks to me like it’s better to win in the 20th [than] lose in the ninth.”14

Seattle’s Schultz, feeling more equitable about the day, said, “Say, how many did we leave on anyway [21]? If people don’t like this kind of baseball, I don’t know what the hell we can give ’em.”15  

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Joseph Wancho and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SE1/SE1196907270.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1969/B07270SE11969.htm

Thanks to Tim Herlich for providing access to Seattle newspaper coverage, including Hy Zimmerman, “Pilots Sink with Sun in Marathon Battle,” Seattle Times, July 28, 1969: 19.

Notes

1 The Pilots tied the score at 6-6 by scoring three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning. The Twins scored once in the 15th, but the Pilots matched that. Finally, in the top of the 18th, the Twins scored four runs (on a combination of three hits and three walks), while the Pilots were held scoreless.

2 The Red Sox played 17 extra-inning games in 1969, starting the season with a 12-inning Opening Day game, then playing games of 13 innings and 16 innings each of the following two days. They hadn’t gone into extra innings since June 28, though.

3 Jim Bouton, Ball Four: Twentieth Anniversary Edition (New York: Macmillan, 1990), 276.

4 Smith was the only Red Sox batter to get as far as third base in the first 18 innings.

5 It was the third 10-inning start of Culp’s career; he pitched 10 innings five times in the majors, earning two wins and receiving three no-decisions.

6 Lenny Anderson, “Pilots Fall in 20th, 5-3.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 28, 1969: 32. Some of the Boston papers concurred regarding the wind blowing in from right.

7 Smith had to leave the game after the 18th with an intense headache. Roger Birtwell, “Lahoud Writes Finis to Late, Late Show,” Boston Globe, July 28, 1969: 21. 

8 Lonborg had just pitched 1⅔ innings of hitless relief the day before.

9 Bill Liston, “Sox win in 20th, 5-3,” Boston Herald Traveler, July 28,1969: 17. Roger Birtwell explained that the setting sun had blinded Yastrzemski.

10 One writer estimated that about 50 percent of the crowd remained until the end. Fred Ciampa, “Sox Win on Lahoud’s 2-Run Homer; Edge Pilots in 20 Inning Battle,” Boston Record American, July 28, 1969: 30.

11 Bill Liston wrote that Sonny Siebert was the only Red Sox player remaining available, since Dalton Jones and Ray Jarvis were on Army Reserve duty and Tony Conigliaro was injured.

12 On September 1, 1906, the Boston Americans and Philadelphia Athletics battled for 24 innings at Boston’s Huntington Avenue Grounds, Philadelphia winning, 4-1. The Athletics’ Jack Coombs and Boston’s Joe Harris both went the distance, but it was Harris who “weakened a little” and lost the game, dropping to 2-18 on the season. The phrase characterizing Harris comes from “Longest Game Finished in Baseball History,” New York Times, September 2, 1906: 7. 

13 In addition to the 1906 game, the other three 20-inning games for Boston were all losses: 4-2 on July 4, 1905 (against the Athletics); August 29, 1967 (4-3 in the second game of a doubleheader against the New York Yankees); and September 3, 1981 (8-7 against a later Seattle team, the Mariners).

14 Gordy Holt, “It’s Better to Win in 20 Than Lose in 9—Williams,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 28, 1969: 41. The Red Sox finished third in the AL East, 22 games behind Baltimore. By season’s end, Dick Williams had been replaced as manager.

15 Holt. The Pilots were only four games under .500 but went 16-46 in their next 62 games. They finished in sixth place in the AL West, 33 games behind the Twins.