The Phillies’ 14th game of the 1993 season -- April 21 against the San Diego Padres at Veterans Stadium -- was postponed and rescheduled for a twinight doubleheader on Friday, July 2. Routine.
However, the most bizarre and wet doubleheader in Phillies history happened on that Friday. First pitch for game one was 4:44 p.m. ET. Mitch Williams' walk-off-RBI single ended Game 2 at 4:40 a.m. Saturday. The Phils' 6-5 win didn’t start until 1:28 a.m. With three rain delays totaling five hours, 54 minutes, Friday’s first game ended at 1 a.m. Saturday, a 5-2 San Diego win.
Two years ago, Paul Hagen wrote a 20th anniversary story about that bizarre night. His lead sentence, “It was a long day's journey into night. And into the twilight zone and then on into the absurd.” Excerpts from his masterpiece.
* The late great Hall of Fame announcer Harry Kalas: "The game is over! On an RBI hit by Mitchy Pooh!" Harry and Richie Ashburn were on radio that night/morning.
* The fans who were there at the end chanted for a curtain call from Williams, who pitched two innings of shutout relief to get the win. After a few minutes, the Wild Thing came out and waved his cap. "I stayed because I had to," he said at the time, adding that his family was in town but left after the first game and that his father went to sleep in his truck in the parking lot. "I do some of my best work at 4:30 in the morning."
* Chris Wheeler and Jay Johnstone were on PRISM TV. Wheels: "I remember never having felt so absolutely exhausted. I'm not a coffee guy, but I drank a lot of Diet Coke. Caffeinated. We did every ... single ... inning. And I was pretty proud of what we did that night, because I thought we hung in there pretty well considering."
Wheeler had recently moved into a new house. “I'm walking up the driveway about 10 until six in the morning, with the tie down, looking like hell and my neighbors had to think, 'We've got a real roustabout. Look at this rummy coming home at 6 o'clock in the morning.'"
* Sometime after 3 a.m., manager Jim Fregosi's wife, Joni, woke up and realized her husband wasn't home. Concerned, she called the clubhouse and was told that he couldn't come to the phone because he was in the dugout and the game was still going on. She didn't fully believe it until she turned on the television to see for herself. Fregosi joked afterwards that it was past his bedtime.
* Everybody remembers the mystique that as the night dragged on, the crowd actually started getting bigger. As the bars closed, people realized the Phillies were playing and came down to the park. And that just played into the rabble-rousing persona that this team embraced.
* "No matter what happened, I figured there was no way we could lose a game starting at 1:30. That was really the peak of our evening. That was when we were at our best. So, I kind of figured we had that one in the bag," said reliever Larry Andersen.
* Added first baseman John Kruk: "We knew we had the advantage. One, two, three in the morning, we were in our prime. The Padres team back then, they had a lot of guys who went to church a lot. They were done."
* Ruben Amaro Jr., the Phillies' leadoff hitter for Game 2: "My memories are of people coming back from the bars. They came from somewhere. Fairly inebriated. But being right over the dugouts and screaming and really getting into it. It was kind of bizarre. Kind of surreal. But it was neat running out there and high-fiving everybody after the game. It was hilarious, but that's the kind of stuff that makes baseball so amazing."
* Dewitt Hobbs, the 73-year-old security guard at the visitors' clubhouse: "It's been 50 years since I stayed out all night."
* The Phillies said they offered to postpone the second game until the following day but that the umpires, who had the final call, were determined to play. That led to a rule change, limiting how late a game can start (1 a.m.) in the future.
Speaking of Bizarre
San Diego reliever Roger Mason pitched in both games. "It had gotten to be so ridiculous," he explained. "I think if we had played 20 more minutes, we would have played until the sun came up. And I really kind of thought that would have been kind of cool. I mean, once you've gotten that far, what the heck? Why not really do it up right?"
Before the next game (7:05 Saturday night), he was called into the manager’s office about an hour before game time. "I thought that was really an odd time to be called into the manager's office. I walked in and the GM [Randy Smith] was in there and I was like, 'OK, what's going on?' And they told me I'd been traded to the Phillies.” (He simply took off the No. 48 SD uniform and walked down the concourse to the Phillies' clubhouse where a red pinstriped No. 48 jersey was waiting.)
Mason didn’t pitch Saturday night, but he was on the mound for the Phillies in their July 4 Sunday night ESPN TV win.
Did You Know?
The Phillies’ 13th game was April 20, a 4-3 win over S.D., on a walk-off homer by Kruk in the bottom of the 14th inning. Time of game: 4 hours, 28 minutes. Mason pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings that night for the Padres.
Phillies Latest Ending Games
4:40 a.m. 7/2/1993 vs. SD (DH and rain)
3:23 a.m. 8/10/1977 vs. MTL (DH and rain)
3:15 a.m. 9/26/1975 vs. NYM (DH and rain)
3:11 a.m. 6/9/1980 vs. SF (rain)
Longest Rain Delays
5 hours, 54 minutes 7/2/1993 vs. SD (three delays in Game 1 of 1:10, 1:56 and 2:48)
5 hours 6/9/1980 vs. SF (two delays of 1:28 and 3:32)
4 hours, 56 minutes 8/10/1977 vs. MTL; DH (two delays in Game 1 of 1:03 and 2:27; 1:26 delay in Game 2)
Personally Speaking
The sun was coming up when I pulled in my Wilmington driveway following the marathon. The News-Journal beat me to my driveway. My family was getting up as I crawled into bed.
John Quinn was my first general manager in 1964. I remember him saying, “You have to learn to sleep fast when you are in baseball.”