Sunday is the 100th anniversary of a record-breaking, 26-inning baseball game between the minor league Bloomington Bloomers and Decatur Commodores.

Held on Memorial Day, May 31, 1909, at Bloomington's old south side grounds, the game remained the longest - as measured by innings - in professional baseball until 1965, when the Elmira (N.Y.) Pioneers defeated the Springfield (Mass.) Giants in a 27-inning Eastern League contest. There has never been a complete Major League game longer than 25 innings. In 1920, the Brooklyn Robins and the Boston Braves went 26 innings, but the game ended in a 1-1 tie.

Back in 1909, Bloomington and Decatur were affiliates of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa (Three-I) League, a Class B circuit similar to AA ball today.

The marathon game, the first of a planned Memorial Day doubleheader, began at 2 p.m. with 1,200 in attendance. The field was muddy from morning showers, and as play began so too did the rains. Despite the lousy weather there was only one interruption-a half-hour rain delay in the fifth inning.

Incredibly, both pitchers, Bloomington's Ed Clark and Decatur's Otto Burns, went the distance. What's more, Burns was not even a pitcher, but rather a backup second baseman and outfielder. Clark, a former semi-pro from Chicago, faced 95 "Commies" (as the Commodores were called), scattering 11 hits over the 26 innings. He gave up one run in the third and the game winner in the 26th. Burns was even better-the Bloomers only run came in the very first inning.

There were relatively few strikeouts (The Pantagraph referred to them as "fan-outs"), with Clark notching 11 and Burns six. Since the ball was mostly in play, both pitchers relied on steady and often slick fielding. Bloomington committed only two errors and Decatur three, a small number when one considers the playing conditions and the era's small, irregular gloves.

As one would expect in a game that stretched 26 innings, both clubs blew decent chances to score. In the bottom of the 23rd, Bloomers right fielder James Novacek was thrown out at home, and the following inning, infielder Joe "Fill Up the Woodbox" Keenan was thrown out at third. The Commies had bases loaded in the seventh, 13th and 17th innings, but could not get a single runner across home plate.

With two outs in the top of the 26th, Decatur catcher Bert Fisher hit a playable pop foul, but Bloomers first baseman Fred Melchoir and backstop Nig Langdon watched as it fell harmlessly between them. The baseball gods often punish such sloppy play, and on the next pitch Clark threw inside and caught Fisher in the ribs.

Thus, what should have been the third out was now the go-ahead run on first. The next batter, weak-hitting shortstop Mark Purtell, then lined the ball over the head of first baseman Melchoir and down the right field line. The ball "squirmed away in the gully that used to be there," recalled Bloomers shortstop Roy Snyder, "and that was it."

Fisher scored from first before Melchoir could reach the ball. With darkness fast approaching, the Bloomers failed to score in the bottom of the 26th, and the end came just before 7 p.m. "While the shades of night were falling fast," The Pantagraph reported the next day, "the visitors slipped over the winning run and the great event in the national game was history." The weary clubs fell one inning shy of playing the equivalent of three complete nine-inning games.

The epic contest received notice throughout the country. "The grounds were muddy and slippery, but the fielding on both sides was extraordinary and the pitching of Burns and Clark was phenomenal," reported the June 1 New York Times.

Two days later the Bloomers dumped skipper William McNamara, who ironically finished the season as the Commies regular catcher, and replaced him with outfielder James Novacek. Ed Clark's arm was never the same, and he was "farmed out" to Kewanee of the Class C Central League.

The Bloomers ended the 1909 campaign with a 71-67 record, good enough for fourth place in the eight-team league. Decatur (63-73) finished seventh while the Rock Island Islanders, with a gaudy 90-48 record, ran away with the pennant.

Bloomers outfielder-turned-manager Jim Novacek passed away in 1951, having spent his last 30 years as a special officer for Bloomington banks. "There was not a day in the 365 that he wasn't gold for a good story or some discussion of baseball," Pantagraph sports editor Fred Young recalled shortly after Novacek's death.

It's hard to imagine that the old ballplayer had a better story than the one about the record-setting Memorial Day marathon back in 1909.