Originally published Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 12:00 AM

22 innings in 6 hours, 16 minutes

/ It started with Jake Peavy throwing the first pitch just before sunset and ended right around last call. In between, the Colorado Rockies...

By Bernie Wilson

The Associated Press

It started with Jake Peavy throwing the first pitch just before sunset and ended right around last call.

In between, the Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres played baseball for 6 hours, 16 minutes. There was a seventh-inning stretch, a 14th-inning stretch and finally, a 21st-inning stretch.

So forgive Colorado's Yorvit Torrealba and San Diego's Josh Bard if their knees are a little sore — they caught all 22 innings.

Torrealba wearily pumped a fist in celebration at 1:21 a.m. Friday after Kip Wells finally secured the Rockies' 2-1 victory by getting Padres pitcher Glendon Rusch to take a called third strike on the game's 659th pitch. San Diego's spacious Petco Park simply didn't surrender much offense on a pleasant spring night — and early morning.

Chicago Cubs Hall of Famer Ernie Banks would have loved this one, since he always used to say, "Let's play two!" But even he might have worn down a bit, since this was roughly the equivalent of 2 ½ games.

Troy Tulowitzki's run-scoring double with two outs in the 22nd brought in Willy Taveras, who scored both of the Rockies' runs.

And after Wells recorded the final out, both teams had planes to catch — the Rockies to Houston and the Padres to Phoenix.

It was the longest game in the majors since Aug. 31, 1993, when Minnesota beat Cleveland 5-4 in 22 innings; the longest in Rockies history and in the five-year history of Petco Park; and the longest by innings for the Padres.

It was one minute short of matching San Diego's longest by time.

"That was an incredible baseball game," Padres manager Bud Black said. "It will go down as one that everybody who was here will never forget it."

How could they — it ranks among the 17 longest games in big-league history, by inning. The longest was 26 innings, a 1-1 tie between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves on May 1, 1920, at Boston. That game, by the way, took only 3 hours, 50 minutes.

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