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33-Inning Game, Pawtucket 1981: The Prize Was More Baseball

From the BBN segment “The 33-inning baseball game”, cut down to under a minute.

On air: Rex "Two-Point" Gridley, Chip Darnell · Published Saturday, October 17 at 5:09 AM ET

The full story and the real reporting behind it (Wikipedia) →

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Transcript of the segment

What BBN said on air. The facts are in the original report: Wikipedia.

Rex "Two-Point" GridleyThe clubhouses are out of food and nobody can go home!
Chip DarnellThat can't be real. Baseball doesn't have a fire pit.
Rex "Two-Point" GridleyIt started at eight twenty-five p.m., after a half-hour delay because of problems with the stadium lights!
Rex "Two-Point" GridleyAnd it was so cold that players burned broken bats and the stadium's wooden benches to keep warm!
Chip DarnellThey burned the benches? I once waited forty minutes at a drive-through and I still kept my seat.
Rex "Two-Point" GridleyTwo future Hall of Famers are out there, Wade Boggs and Cal Ripken Jr., and they still cannot end it! It goes thirty-two innings!
Chip DarnellThirty-two?
Rex "Two-Point" GridleyThey finally stop it at four-oh-seven a.m., and nineteen fans are still in the seats! Every one of them gets a season or lifetime pass!
Chip DarnellNo way. Nobody stays for that. I would have stayed, but still, no way.
Rex "Two-Point" GridleyAnd the thirty-third inning waits two months! Pawtucket wins it three to two on June twenty-third!
Rex "Two-Point" GridleyThat was nineteen eighty-one, McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and the record books call it the longest professional game ever, eight hours and twenty-five minutes of play, per Wikipedia.
Chip DarnellWell, that's one way to make sure your fans stick around! At least they got something for their troubles.
Rex "Two-Point" GridleyChip, that was the prize. Lifetime tickets to more of the same.

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