A complete game for the ages, even with an incomplete result
CROWE'S NEST
Thirty-five years ago, Ruben Patron and Jeff Gingrich each pitched all 20 innings of a 1-1 tie between Long Beach State and San Jose State.
As a baseball coach for 30 years, Jeff Gingrich is sometimes cursed on the mound by pitchers unhappy to be pulled from games.
He doesn't like it much and won't tolerate it -- "The next day, they're running," he says, laughing -- but the former minor leaguer understands the passion.
Thirty-five years ago, during his sophomore season at San Jose State, Gingrich and Long Beach State junior Ruben Patron virtually refused to leave the mound at Long Beach State, each of them establishing a major-college record that might never be broken by pitching all 20 innings in a darkness-shortened 1-1 tie.
"That was a first," Gingrich says, "and probably a last."
Says Patron, who was a walk-on and junior college transfer from Stockton making his first Division I start: "It was just kind of a freak game."
Gingrich and Patron, who have lived most of their adult lives about 90 minutes apart in Northern California, estimate that they probably combined for about 700 pitches, counting pregame and in-game warmups.
Gingrich, the Spartans' ace, gave up 10 hits, walked three and struck out 21. Patron gave up 13 hits, walked one and struck out 12, officially making 197 pitches, according to a teammate charting his effort. Long Beach State scored its only run in the third inning. San Jose State pulled even in the fifth.
The hard-throwing Gingrich, a 10th-round draft pick of the Montreal Expos in 1975, says he was so sore the next day he couldn't raise his arm to comb his hair.
"I tried it, said 'Forget it' and just kind of ran my left hand through it," says Gingrich, a 54-year-old father of two, high school science teacher and assistant coach at San Jose City College. "I think I went to bed at about 8 o'clock. A teenager on a Friday night going to bed at 8? I was beat to death."
The 6-foot, 160-pound Patron, who relied more on guile than did the 6-0, 190-pound Gingrich, says his arm wasn't any sorer than usual.
"I made my next start," he says.
As did Gingrich.
Patron, 56, says he never experienced any ill effects from his marathon pitching performance, continuing to pitch in adult leagues into his 40s and playing basketball into his 50s. Married with no children, he too pursued a career in education and is an assistant superintendent in Merced.
