One game: 37 innings?

So this was certainly intriguing: As Tim Hagerty writes, in 1913 two American Association teams needed four dates and 37 innings to decide just one game. Which is particularly intriguing because, as you know, the professional record is universally considered to be 33 innings, set in this game.

Here’s Hagerty, after citing a note in the 1914 Reach Official American League Base Ball Guide:

The contest took four sessions to complete because of heavy rain the first try, darkness the second try, then darkness again on the third try before Minneapolis sealed a win in the fourth meeting. The question is - were Indianapolis and Minneapolis continuing one game, or playing four separate games?

Major League suspended game rules were different then than they are now. When scores were tied and it became too dark to play, games were ruled a tie and teams started over next time. There was even a tie in Game 2 of the 1912 World Series.

But Major League rules didn’t govern the minor leagues then as closely as they do now. Individual minor leagues had their own sets of rules. Some were really unique, like the 1895 Southern Association letting home teams bat first.

We don’t know for sure if the American Association considered this one 37-inning game or four different games. The Reach Guide was a trusted publication and it used the word “game,” singular, when summarizing this event. But if this was truly a 37-inning game, wouldn’t we have heard about it before now?

Yes, I think we would have. It’s not completely clear, but I have the Reach Guide in question, and it seems to me that this was not considered a single game, but rather was considered three suspended-and-tied games, and finally a real game that counted in the standings. While the Guide does use the word “game” to describe things, later it also uses the word “games” ...

During the 1913 American Association season the Indianapolis and Minneapolis teams accomplished a feat without known parallel in base ball history, namely, deciding a GAME that had been tied three times on three different days by three different scores, requiring 37 innings of play.

--snip--

The scores by innings of these four GAMES are appended, in their regular order, as a matter of history:

Minneapolis and Indianapolis played six innings (1-1) on the 25th of April, nine innings (6-6) on the 15th of June, 13 innings (2-2) on the 7th of August, and finally nine more innings on the 8th of August, when the Millers smashed the Indians, 11-1.

So, mystery solved. I think.