Glacier Pilots Set the Record Straight
With the Glacier Pilots dramatic 4 to 3 win Wednesday night-Thursday morning, June 20, 21, 2012, they and the Peninsula Oilers set an Alaska Baseball ‘League’ record with a game that went 21 innings.
It is the second 21-inning game that the Pilots played in its history – when on June 23, 1992 they beat the Kamloops (BC) Sandpipers by a score of 5-4; however, the Kamloops game is the longest game ever played that lasted 6 hours 39 minutes. Read all about the June 1992 game right here...
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By MICHAEL VANAUSDELN, Daily News reporter
Day: Thursday
Print Run Date: 6/25/1992
The Anchorage Glacier Pilots played a baseball game this week that was so long the cops told the announcer to turn off his loudspeaker because it was keeping the neighbors awake. It was so long that Late Night with David Letterman was off the air by the time it ended. It was so long, it was almost too close to dawn to get a legal drink when it was over. Finally, Pilot third baseman Nate Olmstead ended it with an run-scoring single to right field in the 21st inning at Mulcahy Stadium, giving Anchorage a 5-4 win over British Columbia's Kamloops Sandpipers.
TX: The longest game in Glacier Pilot history had lasted 6 hours, 39 minutes and finished just before 2 a.m. Wednesday.
"It was crazy, " said Pilot second baseman Greg Layson. "From the 10th to 20th innings, it was getting hard to see. We were all getting loopy."
The previous longest game in the 23-year history of the Pilots went 16 innings, back in 1977. This had that one beat long before the last fan and the singular is almost literal here left the stadium.
Lyle Woods, the game announcer, was asked by the Anchorage Police Department to shut off the public address system after the 19th inning because the police had received a noise complaint. Still, about a dozen diehard fans stuck around for the finish. "Could this be the first game called because of daylight?" shouted one. After Woods shut off the P.A. system, the fans huddled in a small group in the grandstands and listened to play-by-play on a radio.
"Nobody cared because the crowd was being noisier than the P.A. system anyway,” said Connie Webb, who hung in till the end. "I guess the neighbors didn't appreciate it. But it was something to see."
It was historic. It lasted longer than a showing of "Lawrence of Arabia, " plus a Woody Allen double feature. The players themselves were into the game, despite its length. They stood outside their dugouts, wearing their caps inside out and cheering when the scoreboard was cleared to accommodate the 12 extra innings. After each extra inning, especially if their team had gotten out of a tight jam, the players ran off the field and jumped all over each other as if they had won the World Series.
"At 2 a.m., I think most of the players are used to being at a party, " said Olmstead. "So I guess they were just partying at the game."
The game went almost 13 innings without either team scoring a run. The Pilots played 18 consecutive innings without scoring. Anchorage played all 13 of its fielders. Seven pitchers from both teams threw 628 pitches. Kamloops starter Paul Sousa lasted 12 innings and threw 169 pitches. Pilot left-fielder Sean Hugo was thankful for the added innings: He extended his hitting streak to 13 games with a single in the 21st inning, after eight hitless trips to the plate.
"I didn't get on base enough to get tired, " said Hugo.
Four Pilots batted nine times apiece, which normally takes at least three games. One of them was Carl Hall, the team's third-leading hitter going into the marathon. He didn't manage to get on base in any of his nine appearances, reducing his batting average from .441 to .349 in a single game. When Olmstead nailed his game-winning hit, though, the Pilots were exuberant, piling on top of each other near second base and hollering at the top of their lungs. Minutes later, Webb who's hosting Olmstead and Pilots catcher Matt Schwenke for the summer took them home to eat. Instead of fixing the full- blown meal she usually makes after a game, she cooked scrambled eggs as the sun came up.
"I thought it was appropriate, " said Webb.

