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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Sport
Dave Caldwell

Nine innings in 51 minutes: Major League Baseball’s fastest game ever

Giants Phillies Major League Baseball Baseball Phils New York Sun
Philadelphia pitcher Lee ‘Specs’ Meadows, center, failed to avoid his 20th loss of the season in a 28 September 1919 loss to the Giants that ended up being the shortest game ever played.
Phillies pitcher Lee ‘Specs’ Meadows, center, failed to avoid his 20th loss of the season in a 28 September 1919 loss to the Giants that ended up being the shortest game ever played. Photograph: George Rinhart/Corbis/Getty Images

No matter how many rules Major League Baseball adds to speed up play, it is safe to say that no two teams will ever be able to beat the record for the fastest nine-inning game in big-league history: 51 minutes. Not one hour and 51 minutes. Fifty-one minutes.

On 28 September 1919, five days before the Cincinnati Reds met the Chicago White Sox in an infamous World Series tattered by gambling, the New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-1, in New York in the first game of a doubleheader – in 51 minutes.

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