LITCHFIELD -- Apparently, 26 innings of high school baseball is a lot to swallow.
It even set a record as the longest doubleheader played between two high school teams anywhere, according to research done by Phil Lowry, a member of the Society for American Baseball Research.
On May 3, the Dragons hosted Dassel-Cokato in a scheduled Wright County Conference doubleheader. Litchfield won the first game 5-4 in seven innings. The second was tied 1-1 after seven innings, then neither team scored another run for 11 innings, when the Dragons took a 3-1 lead. Dassel-Cokato answered with two runs in the bottom of the 18th, the scored the winner on a squeeze bunt in the 19th.
The two games took approximately seven hours to complete.
According to Lowry's research, the doubleheader is the longest high school event recorded, though there are plenty of minor league and other levels of baseball that have lasted longer.
ADVERTISEMENT
The longest doubleheader on record happened July 5, 1915 in the North Carolina League between the Raleigh Capitals and the Durham Bulls, now the Triple-A affiliate for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The first game went 14 innings with Raleigh winning 3-2. The second game lasted 21 innings, then the game was called a tie after 35 innings of baseball.
