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Canadian Baseball League
2002 Articles


Port Hope Tops Toronto 6-5 in 22 Innings

   

(CBL Newswire) - By Chris Kinsella of the Port Hope Argument

Some call baseball the Eternal Game. Somehow, I don't think this was what they had in mind.

In the longest game in Canadian Baseball League history, the Port Hope Battery defeated the Toronto Lightning 6-5 after 22 innings, 35 hits, over 150 official at bats, and an absolutely impossible 299 pitches from Toronto's Shirley Naputi. But those are the bare facts. There is much, much more to the story.

The game started at 6:30pm with some fairly shaky pitching performances by Sandez Uzzle for the Battery and Naputi for Toronto. Uzzle walked 6 in his 6 innings, but left with a 4-3 lead after a rain delay of over an hour in the bottom of the sixth. The time was 9:04pm.

In the top of the seventh, the normally reliable Hery Harpine (season ERA 2.45) got a leadoff groundout from Elisha Ostergren, then walked three straight and was lifted for the normally unhittable Buttons Cammarota (season ERA 2.84), who promptly served up a 2-run single to Ab Mascia. Toronto led, 5-4.

The score was the same with one out in the bottom of the ninth when the deluge began again, this time lasting an hour and 20 minutes. When play resumed, the Battery had Riggs Babiarz on first and one out, and the second was made by Cleo Purdy on a popup to second. With the game likely over, Port Hope Manager Stuff O'Toole elected to pinch hit for backup catcher Archer Joecks, who himself had pinch hit for starter Savaughn Bottarini in the sixth. To the plate strode the oldest position player on the team, CF Wally Tessler, who had appeared in just two games this season. Tessler stroked a double down the left-field line to tie the game and send it into extra innings. The time was 12:34am, and the game had already lasted five hours and four minutes.

No one would score again for over five hours.

Charles "Happy" Hanstradt is probably the Battery's truest fan, never having missed a home game in the three years the Battery have resided in Port Hope. "That Tessler is something," he said, leaning over the rail to chat briefly with O'Toole. "We'll get it for sure now. Naputi has to be done."

But he wasn't, not by a long shot. This game took longer to die than Pagliacci.

With Port Hope now using Tessler behind the plate (the Battery carry just two catchers), the game trudged forward. At 2am, after being on the mound for almost four hours (80 minutes of which was rain delay), Cammarota wearily turned the ball over to closer Raoul McCosker. McCosker pitched two innings. No hitter reached second base. But Port Hope wasn't doing any better at the plate than the Lightning. The score remained tied at 5.

In the top of the eighteenth inning, around 3:10am, with a hard-core group of about 200 fans still in the stands, now collected in a sodden puddle of defiance behind the plate, Toronto got Mascia to third on a double and a stolen base with only one out. Battery pitcher Ashley Roddenberry gamely got the final two outs and knelt down in the mud on the mound while the hoarse little starveling band cheered with what little voice it had remaining.

In the bottom of the eighteenth, Battery Owner Chris Jones ordered the concession stands back open and food to be distributed free. 60 polish dogs were delivered, compliments of Port Hope, to the Toronto dugout. The beer taps ran dry in the nineteenth. Still, the game went on. This, my friends, is why baseball was never meant to be played under the lights.

Then came salvation. With two out in the bottom of the 22nd inning, Cleo Purdy dropped a soft liner into right to score Deniz Szafranski from second with the game's winning run. Right-fielder North Beville was so exhausted he could not even make the throw to the plate, and seemed just as glad. The hit came on Naputi's 299th pitch, his171st strike. He collapsed on the mound. It was five minutes to five in the morning. The game had lasted, with rain delays, for nine hours and 25 minutes.

Wally Tessler (1 for 5), played 13 innings at catcher, allowing just 2 passed balls. The game finished with two pitchers named Ashley and Shirley on the mound. Kirkland Smolder (season avg. .290) went 0 for 10. His batting average dropped six points. Roddenberry pitched 7 and 2/3 without allowing a run. All told, after the seventh, Port Hope relievers tossed 15 consecutive scoreless innings.

Hanstradt was still there for the end, along with forty-one other fans, all of whom were treated to free tickets for any future Battery game. "I've never seen anything like this," Happy said. "When Purdy hit that single, I thought I was hallucinating. I don't think I've ever been so relieved about anything in my life." Lost in the drama was that Port Hope had beaten the West Division leaders and gained a game on Wild-Card leader London, who had lost. The day before. Eight hours ago. Nothing mattered but ending the game.

And first pitch for the rematch, folks, is just 14 hours away.

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