It’s April 30, 1996, and there are no must-win games in April, but when you are up 9-4 against the team you’re fighting with atop the division, you should probably win. But alas, the O’s pitching collapsed and they lost 13-10, ceding first place to the Yankees, for now. 

The game barely ended in April, as at 4 hours and 21 minutes, it was the longest 9-inning game on record. As Buster Olney led his story in the Sun, “The longer it went, the uglier it got. The uglier it got, the longer it went.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 1D, May 1, 1996)

“It seemed like two days and 17 hours,” said O’s first baseman Rafael Palmeiro.

(If you are wondering, the longest 9-inning regular season game since this game was 4 hours and 45 minutes between the Yankees and Red Sox in 2006, and the longest 9-inning postseason game was between the Yankees and Cleveland in 2020 at 4 hours and 50 minutes. Notice anything all these games have in common? Anyway, now that we have new rules like the pitch clock, we probably won’t ever see 9-inning games this long again.)

Olney went into details about the length of the game, which saw exactly 400 pitches, eight pitching changes, and two ejections. The previous longest game was between the Dodgers and Giants in 1962.

The O’s absolutely crushed Yankees starter Andy Pettitte, and the lefty didn’t even record an out in the second inning before giving up 9 runs. But Baltimore starter Arthur Rhodes couldn’t hold the lead, getting chased in the fifth as the Yankees scored five times to even the score.

Tino Martinez would hit a 3-run homer in the seventh off reliever Keith Shepherd, putting the visitors ahead for good.

As the game dragged on, tempers started to flare. Chris Hoiles, who joined his wife in the hospital earlier in the day to welcome their first child before hitting a home run in his first at bat, capped his eventful day by chirping at home plate umpire Terry Craft enough to get thrown out.

Hoiles on the baby: “It was awesome. It’s probably the best thing I’ve ever been through.”

Hoiles on the ejection: “As far as I was concerned, it was a point I felt needed to be addressed. I felt our pitchers have been getting the shaft the last few games. I guess it built to a point where I wanted to let it be known.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 6D, May 1, 1996)

I don’t know how to verify this, but he might have been the first player ever ejected the same day he welcomed a new addition to the family. It was the first time the veteran catcher had ever been ejected.

O’s manager Davey Johnson was also ejected when he came to Hoiles’s defense.

Six different Orioles drove in at least one run, including Bobby Bonilla, who came into the game in an 0-for-19 skid. He has really appreciated Johnson’s support during his slow start.

“He’s been outstanding,” Bonilla said. “He’s very sincere about wanting to get me going. From the bottom of his heart, he thinks I’m so close and I definitely agree with him.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 6D, May 1, 1996)

Here’s the box score with the not so lovely totals.  

Chris Hoiles adds a baby and a brick.

Yankees (13-10) at Orioles (14-12), 7:35 p.m. ET

Starting Pitchers
NYY – LHP Kenny Rogers, 1-0, 3.48 ERA
BAL – LHP David Wells, 2-2, 3.75 ERA

Lots of news on the front page today. In a story ripped from a Netflix thriller, the former CIA director, William Colby, is presumed dead after a canoe accident. Meanwhile, President Clinton is trying to figure out a way to curb surging gas prices. But the lead story in the paper is that Baltimore mayor Kurt Schmoke is seeking significant cuts to the city’s Enoch Pratt Free Library.

The mayor is proposing to cut 10 of the city’s 28 neighborhood branches. “A few of our branches are really limping along,” Schmoke said. “It might make more sense to have three really well-run branches in each council district and then make the central library a real gem.” 

Funding is admittedly a challenge, seeing as the city has lost hundreds of thousands of residents in the last 40 years, leading to what the Sun says is “too little money, too few new books, and too few new readers.” But cutting 10 of 28 branches seems awfully extreme.

David Yaffe of the Friends of the Pratt Library did not mince words about the mayor’s plan. “I am implacably opposed to it,” he said, showing off a reader’s vocabulary, “and feel it would make a sham of the pretense of public library service to the citizens of Baltimore. It might as well be the Cincinnati Public Library.”

For their part, the library says Schmoke’s plan is news to them. “We don’t know the context, whether this is a trial balloon or a seriously thought-out plan,” said Pratt spokesperson Averil J. Kadis. “So far, he hasn’t shared it with us. When he does, I’m sure we’ll be happy to talk with him.”

Today (in 2026), the Pratt Library has 21 neighborhood branches, seven fewer than it did 30 years ago.

Welcome to a recurring segment where I find fun things in today’s (in 1996) Baltimore Sun!

Finally.