Better than a Rudy May-Vida Blue duel

Pitching, speed, defense. That's what I love about baseball, maybe in that order. Deadball baseball, the 1985 St. Louis Cardinals, the 1896 Baltimore Orioles. Those are my kind of teams.

I think my ideal game would be a ten inning pitchers' duel (have to have a bonus inning) with no score through the first 9 and a half innings. Lots of strikeouts and great defensive plays. In the bottom of the tenth, with two out, the home pitcher comes to the plate and laces a ball down the line, hoofing it into third for a triple. Then, surprising everyone, the pitcher breaks for home and steals victory for himself.

That would never happen for a number of reasons. Pitchers don't work ten innings anymore, they aren't allowed to bat in late inning, close game situations and they certainly aren't allowed to steal home, especially with two outs. So unless Kevin Costner comes to see me while filming Field of Dreams II: The Astrodome, I'll never witness my ideal game.

And I never saw the game below either. It might be a few too many innings for my liking, but you won't come across a pitchers' duel like this ever again.

The game I reference in the post title is this one. May and Blue hold the record for most strikeouts by two starting pitchers in a game (30) and the combined 43 strikeouts in a game by both teams is the major league record. A mere seventeen shy of the total in this game.