The Chukyo High School baseball team took the long road to a win in the National High School Rubber Baseball Tournament on Sunday, beating Sotoku High School 3-0 in 50 innings. That’s right, 50 innings.
That was after four days of play and 49 scoreless innings. Games in the tournament are played with a rubber ball called a “nanshiki,” which is lighter than a regular baseball and doesn’t travel as far, cutting down on scoring, according to Deadspin.
After taking a close look at the game’s box score, you’ll notice that both pitchers threw complete games. Chukyo’s Taiga Matsui threw 709 pitches over 50 shutout innings, while Sotoku’s Jukiya Ishioka threw 689 pitches but gave up a two-run double that broke the game open.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKSQ-SbvZr0?rel=0%5D
The game began on Aug. 28, and the two teams played 15 innings over the next three days. If the matchup had reached 54 innings, it would have been decided by a draw. This ending was much more exciting.
