It Was a Long Day’s Night for Dodgers

On this date in 1989, the Dodgers and Houston Astros started the longest night game, by time, in National League history.

It ended after 7 hours 14 minutes with the Astros winning, 5-4, on a run-scoring hit by Rafael Ramirez off the glove of Dodger first baseman Fernando Valenzuela.

Valenzuela was at first because Eddie Murray had moved to third base when Jeff Hamilton was summoned to pitch.

Hamilton hadn’t pitched since his senior year in high school but one of his pitches was clocked at 91 mph, speed he attributed to having a fresh arm, since he was pitching “on seven years’ rest.”

Trivia time: What teams played in Major League Baseball’s longest game by time?

Iron Vin: The Dodger-Houston game was played Saturday night into Sunday morning, and Vin Scully was the Dodger broadcaster for all 22 innings -- after having worked 10 innings for NBC on a St. Louis-Chicago Cub game earlier on Saturday.

Then, for good measure, the Dodger-Astro game on Sunday went 13 innings, meaning Scully worked 45 innings in 29 hours.

No big deal to Scully.

“As a youngster growing up in the Bronx, I had a lot of tough jobs,” he told The Times’ Larry Stewart. “I washed silverware in a hotel, I shoveled snow, I slotted mail, I was a milkman.

“A lot of people have it tougher.... I love my work and am well paid, so I’m the last person who should ever complain.”

Doggin it: The big race at Los Alamitos last Saturday was won by a nose. Not a horse’s nose, though.

The championship of the Eighth Annual Wienerschnitzel Weiner Nationals was won by Pretzel, who nipped defending champion Noodles in the final, uh, strides of what might otherwise be called the Dachshund Derby.

There were nine races -- eight trials and the final -- all at 50 yards, with a record crowd of 6,431 in attendance.

Pretzel’s winning time was “about six seconds,” an approximation by track officials who were probably howling so hard they forgot to start the electronic timer. There was no betting on the race, a fund-raiser for the Seal Beach Animal Care Center.

Pretzel, who for the next year will carry the title “Fastest Wiener in the West,” took home $1,000, plus a bright red and yellow doghouse in the shape of a Wienerschnitzel restaurant that his owners said would be the “centerpiece” of their backyard.

Trivia answer: The Chicago White Sox defeated the Milwaukee Brewers, 7-6, in 8 hours 6 minutes on May 8 (and 9), 1984. The game went 25 innings.

And finally: Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock is wondering if “preacher-turned-coaching expert” Jesse Jackson will be weighing in on the firing of Detroit Piston coach Rick Carlisle, who is white, by Piston General Manager Joe Dumars, who is black.

Jackson “has kept his name in the news by commenting on nearly every coaching change, firing or vacancy in pro sports,” Whitlock wrote. “The Carlisle family, I’m sure, would welcome Jesse’s support....

“Now I liked Jesse when he was a preacher and talked about things he actually knew something about. But Jesse the coaching expert is an embarrassment and a detriment to the progress of black coaches.”