Talking Sports: Time is of the essence

There are a lot of cliches in sports. One of the oldest is that “records are made to be broken.” But there are also those records which many or even most of us think will never be touched.

Baseball seems the most numbers crazy of the four most popular American professional sports. Baseball fans love the numbers. Me too.

When I was a little boy I would pour through almanacs and record books scanning the statistics. A lot of the records I came across then still stand today. Yet after seeing a number of records fall over the years, I consider no hallowed number beyond reach. It may not happen soon, but eventually even the most sacred of the marks will fall, so long as games continue to be played.

That is, all records will be broken except for ones dealing with brevity. Those benchmarks are iron clad and shall stand for all time.

The usual ones we consider unattainable can be recalled by most off the top of our heads. Joe Dimaggio’s record of hitting safely in 56 consecutive games comes to mind. Not too many ever think that one will be broken. Or how about the Non-Performance Enhancing Drug Induced Career Home Run record of Hank Aaron at 755? What about the single season Non Performance Enhancing Drug Induced Season Home Run record of 61 by Roger Maris?

Recently I was looking at a list of the shortest and longest games in MLB history. I have little doubt the longest games will all be broken before too long--perhaps within the week. Baseball games seem to get longer and longer with every passing year. Of course television is a big culprit. But I don’t mind that too much. A good game should go on for a while.

On the other hand, I can’t conceive that the records for the shortest MLB games of all time will ever be broken. One little piece of evidence to support this theory is that the records for brevity are very old. Records regarding the longest games are significantly younger by comparison.

So if you think records are made to be broken, how about mulling over a few of these:

According to the Baseball Almanac, the shortest double header ever recorded was on Sept. 26, 1926 between the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Browns. It took just two hours and seven minutes to play 18 innings.

Just for comparison, the Boston Red Sox and Yanks played in the longest 18-inning double header. On Aug. 18, 2006 the pair played for eight hours and 40 minutes. The second game at Fenway Park that day is still the standard for the longest single nine inning contest. It took 15 minutes short of five hours to complete.

The good news on the 1926 twin bill is that the Browns took both ends at Sportsmans Park by scores of 6-1 and 6-2. I would have thought a pair of 1-0 games would have been more likely. Bad news is the Yankees recovered to sweep the “Sawx” 80 years later by scores of 12-4 and 14-11.

Perhaps the most astounding aspect from 1926 is that the Bronx Bombers hammered out 10 hits in game one while the Browns slammed 15. It was helpful that there were only two strikeouts and four walks issued the entire game. Six double plays didn’t hurt either.

Babe Ruth was removed after one at bat in game one and sat out game two. With the Bambino’s propensity for walks, strikeouts and slow trots around the bases his absence may have aided the cause of a shorter day.

Remarkably, it took just 55 minutes to complete the 8 runs on 20 hits in game two. Lou Gehrig belted a homer to account for all the Yankees scoring. He must of hit that one on the first pitch and sprinted around the bases.

Fifty-five minutes may be a quick one, but that’s not even the shortest game ever played. For that you would have to go back to Sept. 28, 1919. On that afternoon the New York Giants topped the Philadelphia Phillies 6-1 in 51 minutes. Though the home team won, I wonder if any of the 14,000 fans in attendance at the Polo Grounds felt cheated?

I never heard of Jesse Barnes, but he got the win to finish up his season at 25-9. Nice turnaround for young Jesse. Or old Jesse--I have no idea. But in 1917 he led the league in losses with 21. After going 152-150 over his career though, it figures he must have had a few rough years along the way, too. But he had a no hitter in 1922 that can never be taken away from him.

Somehow on that day in 1919 the teams managed 18 hits, with the Giants belting 13 of them. New York’s rookie third baseman Frankie Frisch pounded out one of the hits which drove in a run. I mention Frisch only because his name is the only one in the box score that’s familiar to me.

Should any of the above records for brevity ever be broken, I sure would like to see it. Imagine being at a game where outs are recorded at the rate of more than one per minute while in between 18 hits are struck and 7 runs scored.

I wonder if Jesse Barnes took warm-up pitches between innings?