The Fastest Game Anybody Ever Played

The Fastest Game Anybody Ever Played (1916)

Last day of the Class D season in Asheville, and the visiting Winston-Salem Twins had a train to catch. So both clubs agreed to start early and play fast. Pitchers lobbed it in, batters swung at the first pitch, runners ran until tagged, fielders sprinted on and off. Nine innings took 31 minutes. Nobody told the umpire, who turned up in the fourth. Fans arriving on time found it already over. The game was nearly lost to history until a SABR researcher dug it out decades later. It still stands as the quickest professional game on record.

The Fastest Pitch Anybody Had Measured (1939)

A crude velocity box made the rounds of ballparks that summer, and in Cleveland it got pointed at Yankees rookie Atley Donald. The favorite was Bob Feller. Donald threw 139 feet per second, or 94.7 miles per hour, and beat Feller's number. He was in the middle of a rookie year he opened by winning his first 12 decisions. Feller took the mark back a few years later, which surprised nobody except possibly Feller.

Casey Runs Out of Clock (1965)

Stengel had been in professional baseball since 1910. He broke his hip in a fall in late July, and after surgery he gave his players the truth: he had figured on strutting out of the hospital in four weeks, then knew he could not make it. The last of the 3,753 games he managed was already behind him. Ten pennants with the Yankees, four seasons of glorious wreckage with the Mets, Cooperstown the following year.

The Voice Comes Back Around (1972)

In 1921, Westinghouse engineer Harold Arlin sat in a box seat at Forbes Field with a converted telephone and became the first man to call a big league game on the radio. He left broadcasting in 1925. Fifty one years later Bob Prince handed him the Pirates microphone again, because the starter for San Diego that day was his grandson Steve, who spent his winters practicing dentistry. Some circles take a while to close.