Photo by theseanster93 
Yesterday, the Cleveland Indians won their 14th straight game in spectacular fashion – 2-1 over the Blue Jays in 19 innings (on a Carlos Santana home run). The contest took six hours and 13 minutes and the two teams sent 19 pitchers (well, there were a couple of position players in that mix) to the mound.
All of that brought to mind just HOW MUCH THE GAME HAS CHANGED … and the fact that, back on May 1, 1920, Boston (NL) and Brooklyn played 26 innings to a 1-1 tie (called on account of darkness) … and BOTH STARTERS WENT THE DISTANCE.
May 1, 1920
Brooklyn 000 010 000 000 000 000 000 000 00 1 9 2
Boston 000 001 000 000 000 000 000 000 00 1 15 2
Starting pitchers Leon Cadore of Brooklyn and Joe Oeschger of Boston (NL) each threw more than 300 pitches (analysts estimate Cardore at 345 and Oeschger at 319) in completing their 26-inning, record-setting starts. Cadore gave up 15 hits and five walks, while fanning 7; while Oeschger allowed only nine hit and four walks, while also striking out seven batters. Oh, and here’s another sign of how the game has changed, the time of the 26-inning contest was only 3 hours and 50 minutes.
For BBRT’s look at what has happened to the complete game in MLB, click here.
I tweet baseball @DavidBBRT
Member: Society for American Baseball Research; The Baseball Reliquary; Baseball Bloggers Alliance.
