The shortest nine-inning MLB game ever played
There’s nearly universal agreement that the pitch clock, instituted in 2023, changed MLB for the better. But how short a game is too short? Would playing a nine-inning game in under an hour make fans feel like they were cheated? At today’s prices the answer would be a resounding YES! Fortunately, these days there’s little danger of any MLB game being played in under an hour. The shortest recorded nine inning MLB game ever played was a snappy 51 minutes.
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What if playing an official nine-inning MLB game in under an hour was done intentionally?
That’s what happened 76 years ago at the Polo Grounds on September 28, 1919, when the host New York Giants topped the Philadelphia Phillies 6–1 in a mere 51 minutes. There were 51 outs recorded in the game. The game was the first of a season-ending doubleheader for both teams. The Giants were locked into second place, while the Phillies were mired in last place. The outcome wasn’t important to the National League standing.
Jesse Barnes of the Giants threw a complete game five-hitter, throwing only 64 pitches (in nine innings), allowing the one unearned run. The 64 pitches set a then-record for the fewest in a nine-inning game. Just about 25 years later Red Barrett of the Boston Braves tossed a 2–0 shutout facing the minimum 27 Cincinnati Reds batters throwing a total of 58 pitches.
There have been innings longer than 51 minutes!
You probably thought about that already and if you were wondering about it — yes Virginia, there have been single MLB innings that have lasted longer than 51 minutes.
My personal favorite is one from a game more than 21 years ago on May 8th, 2004, in Arlington, Texas between the Rangers and Detroit Tigers. In that game, a wild affair that ended 16–15 in favor of Texas, Alfonso Soriano went a perfect 6–6. The game featured a ten-run rally by the Rangers in the bottom of the fifth which followed an eight-run top of the fifth tallied by the Tigers. The Tigers had four walks, a HPB and five base hits to tally their runs. The Rangers had eight hits and four bases on balls in the bottom half of the inning which ironically ended on a ground ball double play.
The fifth inning that night took one hour and eight minutes! The Rangers walked off the Tigers on a single in the bottom of the tenth inning by Michael Young driving in his teammate-but-not-brother Eric Young.
I suspect that were I to have been at the game and sat through watching two teams score 18 runs over 68 minutes, I might have been ready to go home just as the fans did after 51 minutes at the Polo Grounds September 28, 1919!
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Baseball has always had a penchant for publishing the elapsed time of a completed game. I don’t believe the NFL, NBA, or NHL note the duration of their games in their scoring summaries/box scores. When the Phillies and Giants played their 51-minute contest, there was not an immediate understanding that it was the designated shortest game in MLB history. It was noted that a year earlier there was a 56-minute game between the Giants and Dodgers, and in the summary of the 51-minute game, the Philadelphia Inquirer called out a 55-minute game played just a week before the Phillies and Giants now-record shortest game. But nobody knew for certain as game logs were not always kept with game times.
Playing the quickest game ever was done with some design
From another great SABR article on the game:
“According to the Illustrated Daily News, both the Giants and the Phillies “agreed to go after the speed record” before the first game of the doubleheader. Such an agreement would have been between Giants acting manager Christy Mathewson, who had been filling in for legendary skipper John McGraw ever since the pennant race was lost, and Phillies player-manager Gavvy Cravath, who had taken over two months earlier.”
“The Illustrated Daily News noted that “the men went up intent on smacking the first pitch” and “did so for the most part.” The hometown fans “didn’t object” to the game’s fast pace, according to the New York Tribune, as the “free hitting and didn’t care spirit of play made possible many bits of brilliant work.” The paper identified Frisch as the brightest of “the luminaries” on defense and noted that the bespectacled Meadows “wasn’t inclined to over-exert himself. … [He] just pitched.”
Pitcher Jesse Barnes of the Giants benefitted from the Phillies’ aggressiveness and desire to play the game quickly. Home plate umpire HOFer Bill Klem urged on the players running hard on and off the field as hard as they could! In addition to allowing five hits, Barnes issued no walks in garnering the victory. There was a total of 70 plate appearances by the two teams combined. So clearly each plate appearance took an average less than one minute including the time between innings! The actual average per plate appearance ended up being only 30 seconds!
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Now that it’s playoff season we’ll go back to 3 hour+ games
Since you are wondering, the shortest MLB game in 2025 was between the host Texas Rangers (they keep showing up here), and Washington Nationals on June 6 which lasted one hour and fifty minutes. There were no hits after the third inning.
While the pitch clock has moved MLB away from those sometimes four-hour but still epic Yankees-Red Sox games, playoff games will blow past the 2025 seasonal average of 2 hours and 38 minutes. Most baseball fans are just fine with long postseason games including me!
Still, a 51-minute nine-inning game is something I might be interested in watching if it was part of a doubleheader!
About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and now Substack.com.
