A Long Night’s Journey Into Day

This option wasn’t available to Bud Selig during the infamous All-Star game tie of 2002, but it is one he ought to consider.

When you’ve played so many innings that you’ve run out of players and used every pitcher on the roster, you don’t call it a draw. You call up the nearest live arm you can find and you play on, Bud, you play on.

That’s what the Chicago Cubs did when their Tuesday night game against the Houston Astros meandered into Wednesday morning and through 18 innings. The Cubs finally won, 8-6, but used every player on the roster in the process -- including Rich Hill, who was supposed to start Wednesday’s afternoon game but wound up throwing 28 pitches to close out the victory.

That meant that every Wednesday newspaper that listed Hill as “Today’s pitcher” had it right. Hill pitched on Wednesday, all right -- recording the final out at 12:41 in the morning, CDT.

Thus, Hill couldn’t make his scheduled start at Minute Maid Park, so the Cubs placed a call to their Iowa minor league team, playing in nearby Round Rock, Texas, and summoned 26-year-old left-hander Ryan O’Malley for an emergency start.

O’Malley got the news at 6 a.m., the Cubs sent a limousine to drive him to Houston for the 1:05 p.m. game and O’Malley, perhaps too harried to be nervous, pitched eight scoreless innings in Chicago’s 1-0 victory.

Trivia time: In terms of hours and minutes played, what is the longest major league game on record?

Minute upon minute: The Cubs-Astros game lasted 5 hours 36 minutes, so long that the home field might have been rechristened Three-Hundred Thirty-Six Minute Maid Park.

Mused Houston Manager Phil Garner: “We normally win 18-inning games here.”

Raccoon escapes fine: The New Orleans Time-Picayune reported in its Thursday editions that “the NFL will take no disciplinary action against the Tennessee Titans or their raccoon-costumed mascot for a golf cart accident that injured Saints reserve quarterback Adrian McPherson at halftime of last week’s exhibition game in Nashville.” The Titans’ mascot, T-Rac, plowed his golf cart into McPherson while the player attempted to field a punt during warmup drills. McPherson sustained a deep bruise on his right knee, did not play in the second half and has been unable to practice since.

Saints wide receiver Joe Horn told Sports Illustrated, “If that had been me, I’d still be lying there. I would have owned a percentage of that team.”

Trivia answer: On May 9, 1984, the Chicago White Sox and the Milwaukee Brewers played a 25-inning game that lasted 8 hours 6 minutes. The White Sox won, 7-6.

And finally: The Atlanta Falcons have signed a multiyear sponsorship agreement with Checkers, allowing the drive-in restaurant chain to sell “the official burger of the Falcons” and “Big Falcons Combo” meals at select locations in the Atlanta area.

In honor of the team’s 40-year history of perpetually following a winning season with a losing one, the “Big Falcons Combo” comes with this potential slogan: “If you liked this one, we guarantee you’ll hate the next!”