To all of the baseball lovers out there, here’s a little trivia that goes back seventy-two years. It’s nice to know that the tradition of the game remains as frustrating and fascinating as ever.
In baseball there is no clock. A pro basketball game lasts 48 minutes while hockey and football games last 60 minutes. But as the old saying goes, a baseball game (or the inning) isn’t over until the final out. A game on May 21, 1952, between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers proved the old saying true.
The first half-inning had lasted one hour. Twenty-one batters had gotten hits and seven walks, and two batters had been hit by a pitched ball. Fifteen runs had scored, and three men were left on base. The following day the New York Times printed some of the records the Brooklyn team had broken in that that first-half inning:
Most runs scored in one inning (15)
Most runs scored in the first inning (15)
Most runs scored with two outs (12)
Most batters to bat in one inning (21)
Most batters to reach base safely in a row (19)
This last record may be the most amazing of all. Only the first batter and the last had not gotten on base safely. The 19 batters in between had all made it – even the man who was put out on the basepaths for the second out. The Times confessed it couldn’t be sure that 19 batters in a row was a record, but if any major league team ever did better, no one remembers the occasion.
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