Rangers History Today: A Texas 18-Inning Marathon
On this date in history, the Texas Rangers and the Kansas City Royals played the first 18-inning game in Rangers history.
The Rangers were less than two months into their first season in Arlington when the Rangers and Royals squared off on May 17, 1972 at Municipal Stadium in Kansas City.
Texas grabbed a 3-0 lead in the top of the first inning, but couldn’t hold on to it. The Royals scored runs in the second, fourth, and seventh innings to tie the game at 3-3. From there, the Rangers and the Royals played 10 scoreless inning before the Rangers scored a run in the top of the 18th inning to eventually win the game.
Some of the highlights:
· The Rangers and Royals combined for 124 official at-bats.
· Rangers third baseman Dave Nelson, Rangers left fielder Larry Biittner, and Royals left fielder Lou Piniella each had eight at-bats, the most of any player in the game.
· Since this was the days before the designated hitter, pitchers hit in this game. Only five of the 12 pitchers in the game had official at-bats.
· Rangers infielder Lenny Randle had the most at-bats in the game (7) without a hit.
· Four Royals had two or more hits — Amos Otis, Richie Scheinblum, Cookie Rojas, and Piniella. But only one Rangers players had two hits — Joe Lovitto.
· There wasn’t a single home run hit in the game.
· The game was played for nearly five hours and drew just 7,114 fans.
So how did the Rangers win? Bizarrely, of course. Lovitto reached first base with one out on catcher’s interference. Rangers pitcher Jim Panther bunted, but he reached on an error, and that error allowed both Lovitto and Panther to move 90 feet. Jim Driscoll drew an intentional walk to load the bases, and then Toby Harrah grounded into what should have been a double play, but Driscoll broke it up and Lovitto scored. (thanks to sabr.org for the play by play).
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