Sometimes, games drag on for hours. In the New York Penn-League, they never end.
After five hours, 39 minutes, and 20 innings, the Cyclones’ two runs were not enough to overcome the Staten Island Yankees’ three.
“I’ve been doing this for 40-something years, this is the third longest game I’ve ever played in,” manager Tom Gamboa said after the game while munching on a plate of chicken and potatoes, likely his first meal in what seemed like days. “I had two in Puerto Rico that went 27 and 21, so this is the third longest for me and it comes opening night.”
In a game that displayed ultimate futility, the teams combined to leave 31 men on base and go two for 30 with runners in scoring position. The Cyclones also set a franchise record by striking out 22 batters, breaking the record set almost 14 years ago to the day. Their offense wasn’t any better, fanning 19 times.
“You know it’s only one game, but the ironic thing is this kind of reflects last year all over again,” Gamboa said. “Great pitching, I mean we ran eight pitchers out there that really did a great job, and our offense bordered somewhere between hopeless and inept. ”
After securing the first losing season in the team’s 15-year history last season, the ‘Clones needed a jolt to kick off their 2016 campaign. Enmanuel Zabala ensured just that, although most of the 7,011 fans in attendance were still settling into their seats.
The 21-year-old leadoff batter took Staten Island Yankees’ starter Adonis Rosa‘s fifth pitch of the game out of the ballpark, slamming it off of the scoreboard in deep left field. It was Zabala’s second professional home run; the other (a grand slam, nonetheless) came in the Dominican Summer League on June 6, 2013.
Cyclones starter Gabriel Llanes went five innings, allowing six hits and two runs, while walking two with a strikeout. He threw 49 of his 69 pitches for strikes . The one punchout came at the end of the second inning, when Llanes got shortstop Danienger Perez swinging at a changeup.
Gamboa was pleased, saying, “He showed poise and command out there, and I was real happy with him.”
Following the leadoff home run, Rosa held the Cyclones bats silent, setting down the next eleven before back-to-back extra base hits from Brandon Brosher and Darryl Knight brought in a run in the fourth.
After that, it was a bullpen kind of game. Five Cyclones pitchers tossed two scoreless innings each, while two more pitched one frame apiece. Once the team ran out of pitchers, Gamboa looked down his dugout for a saving grace.
“We literally went down the bench, asking guys who had pitched before they signed, and we had two,” Gamboa said.
Those two were backup infielders Franklin Correa and Dionis Paulino. Correa allowed one hit in two otherwise harmless innings, but once Paulio took the mound, it was clear that the end was near. The 19-year-old first baseman began his Cyclones debut by delivering six straight pitches out of the strike zone in the top of the 20th, eventually walking the bases loaded. It was then that Yankees leadoff batter Ricardo Ferreira, who had gone 0-8 to that point, delivered a sacrifice fly, bringing in the first run from either side since the Knight triple in the fourth.
The Cyclones were set down in the bottom of the inning, sending their fans home, if not happy, relieved as the clock read 12:40.
I didn’t think I would manage to make it through the game in its entirety, but here I am, living to tell about it.
If you attend enough games, you’re bound to see something you’ve never seen before, but in my case, this was not new. I sat in the sun at Citi Field for over six hours on June 8, 2013, when the Mets and Marlins battled for 20 innings, the last such game in the majors. No position players pitched in that contest, but I did see Shaun Marcum pitch longer than starter Matt Harvey, who went seven innings.
As I looked out at MCU Park from the press box, watching the roller coasters and Ferris wheel while Yeffry De Aza swung at three straight sliders out of the zone in the 17th inning, I sympathized with the 300 fans remaining, but remembered that this is what makes baseball the greatest game of them all.
All photos taken by Jacob Resnick
