NEW HAVEN 200: Ron Darling, Yale lose 'greatest college baseball game ever played'

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College baseball games are generally played in front of a smattering of fans, and by all accounts, that was the generally the case at Yale Field on a late May afternoon in 1981.

That's where the details begin to fluctuate. New Haven Register columnist Dave Solomon once wrote that you'd think that over 50,000 fans were in attendance when the Bulldogs met St. John's in what is called the greatest college baseball game ever played.

Ron Darling pitched Games 1, 4 and 7 of the 1986 World Series for the world champion New York Mets, one of the last pitchers to start three games in a single World Series. But around New Haven, the former Yalie is best known for his classic duel against Frank Viola and the Redmen in an NCAA regional.

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Darling pitched 11 innings of no-hit ball that day, only to lose the game 1-0 in the 12th on a single, an error and a double steal.

BOX SCORE FROM THE GAME

While the mystique of that game remains strong three decades later, Darling concedes that some of the romance of that game might have to do with the fact he lost the NCAA tournament game after pitching no-hit ball for a record 11 innings.

"I'm a little surprised by (the continuing legend of that game), because I think the last person who can enjoy an athletic event is the person who's in the middle of it," Darling told Solomon in January of 2011. "But what I tell people all the time, and I find it hilarious, is that I'm probably more well known because I lost that game. I think if I had won that game 1-0, it would have been one of the great games ever pitched, but the heartache of losing a game in which someone pitched 11 innings of no-hit ball has made the story better."

Another Yale legend, Rich Diana played center field in the game. Going a dozen innings was none too spectacular for Darling that season. Darling started -- and finished -- all 28 games he appeared in that year and grabbed the Redmen's respect from the very first pitch he threw that day, a patented disappearing slider.

"For 42 years now I've been involved in baseball," Viola said. "To this day I've never seen a better-pitched game."

St. John's Steve Scafa led off the 12th inning with a bloop single prompting the entire Redmen team to come to the top steps of the dugout to give Darling a standing ovation. Darling had already surpassed 170 pitches and watched as Scafa stole second and then third base following a Yale error.

With runners on the corners and two outs St. John's pulled off a double steal. Darling said that he had hoped to cut off the throw headed for second base but slipped and Scafa had scored the game's only run by the time Yale completed the relay home.

Darling finished the game allowing just the one hit in 12 innings while fanning 16. Yale had seven hits off Viola but never got a runner to third base.