August 31, 2014

Japanese High School Game Lasts 50 Innings

CHU: 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 03 - 3 22  1
SOT: 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 00 - 0 26  5
Samer Kalaf, Deadspin:
A baseball game in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan that started Thursday took 50 innings and four days to determine a winner, which is amazing in its own way, but wait until you see the two starters' pitch counts.

Chukyo finally defeated Sotoku 3-0 in the 50th Sunday morning, but look at those pitching lines. Both starting pitchers played the entire game. Taiga Matsui hurled 709 pitches for Chukyo, and Sotoku's Jukiya Ishioka threw 689 pitches. Even over the course of four days, holy shit. ...

If the game had surpassed 54 innings, the winner would have been decided by a lottery, which would have sucked for the team that played 54 innings of baseball and didn't get picked.
Linescore and more info here.

3 comments:

laura k said...

OMG

Kathryn said...

CRAZY

slongfellow said...

This raises the question of is it acceptable to put young players through this? It also raises the question of what is the best way to end a game? is 50 innings too much? What about 100 innings? What if a pitcher had thrown his arm out during this contest, would it have raised any questions about the ethics of putting an athlete out for such a prolonged period of time day after day for 4 days? Interesting article on the best way to end a game here: http://yfo.re/PerfectEnd