You will never hear any baseball announcer or color commentator say this sentence. Baseball is one of the few sports that has no time limit. The game could last an hour or it could last five, you just never know. That's the beauty behind the sport. You're never out of time. There is always the hope of coming back. No clock is going to end a two-out rally in the bottom of the 9th. There's never the pressure of beating the clock. There's just you and three outs.
Having no clock adds and extra level of skill to the game. You can't just run out the clock to win. No, in baseball you have to work for it. You have to get those three outs. You have to play those nine innings, no matter how long it takes.
Today we'll turn back the clock to 1926. The St. Louis Browns (they became the Baltimore Orioles in 1953) beat the New York Yankees in a 55 minute game. The game was the first game of a double header and the Browns won 6-2.
How they managed to play nine innings in under an hour is a history mystery. Especially considering the second game of the double header took a much more reasonable two hours and seven minutes. Regardless, a game like this proves how anything is possible when there's no clock.
As impressive as this game is, it's not the shortest complete Major League Baseball game. On September 28, 1919 the New York Giants (later to move to San Francisco) beat the Philadelphia Phillies 6-1 in a 51 minute game.
Now, a day at the ball park is more of a day, as games take a little longer to play.
The longest game in MLB history was May 1, 1920 when the Brooklyn Robbins and the Boston Braves finally called a 26-inning game a tie. What's even more impressive about this game is that both pitchers threw all 26 innings!
On a more modern scale. On August 18, 2006, a game between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox took four hours and 45 minutes to complete.
So, what's the force behind the varying lengths? Well, the biggest reason, as I've already mentioned is the clock. But, as you'll notice, the short games were both played in the early days. So, what has changed? Well for one thing, the games are now televised. This means there are commercial breaks and replays that take longer. In addition, baseball players now tend to take more time preparing for each pitch or each at bat. They are more methodical and each have their own way of doing things.
There's no saying how long a game will go, and that's part of the fun!
Sources:
Yahoo! Sports: The 10 Longest Extra-Inning Games http://goo.gl/KGZZ8
ESPN This Date in Baseball http://goo.gl/ci2en
Picture: jdbaseball.com
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