Atlanta Braves score 29 runs, somehow not a record

Contrary to the claims, the Atlanta Braves 29-run outburst was not an NL record.

Let’s be clear. Contrary to the claims of Atlanta Braves announcers, the Atlanta Braves did NOT set a National League record for most runs in a game Wednesday night.

That does not make the Braves’ 29-9 victory over the Miami Marlins any less impressive. In fact, the Braves deserve plenty of credit, for their run production was the most by any National League team in more than 123 seasons.

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But a record? Sorry, Chip…not even especially close.

In fact, on six different occasions, a National League team has scored more than 30 runs in a single nine-inning game. The only catch is that none of them have done it since the beginning of the 20th Century which, for some odd reason, is the cutoff non-historians arbitrarily apply to the record book.

That’s also the standard MLB.com applied in its coverage of the event when it declared Atlanta’s splurge the “modern-era” record, dismissing everything that had transpired before MLB chose to begin paying attention to its own doings. To be clear, “modern-era record” is a term used to imply something that is not a record actually is a record.

There was in fact no substantive difference between the way baseball was played in 1901 and the way it was played in 1899 that would make the latter game anymore “modern” than the former. There certainly were substantive changes made during baseball’s first two decades in the way the game was played,  but those reached a settled form when the mound was situated at 60 feet, six inches. That occurred in 1893.

The Braves’ 29-run output did not even set a franchise record…that remains with the 1883 Boston Beaneaters, who on June 9 of that pennant-winning season hung 30 on the Detroit Wolverines. (The final score was 30-8).

The Beaneaters became the Boston Braves early in the 20th Century, moving to Milwaukee in the 1950s and to Atlanta in the 1960s.

Nor was that 30-run outburst a record at the time. One season earlier the Chicago White Stockings – today’s Cubs – beat the Cleveland Blues 35-4.

The White Stockings’ record remained on the books until being surpassed by their descendants, the Chicago Colts, in 1897. On June 29 of that season, the Colts took down the Louisville Colonels by a score of 36-7.

In that game played at Chicago’s West Side Park, the Colts opted to bat first – a frequent occurrence in those days when baseballs were rarely removed from play. Home teams frequently elected to bat first because they wanted the first crack at a fresh new ball.

The Colts scored in all nine innings that day, including seven runs in the third inning to extend their lead to 15-0. They carried a 21-7 advantage into the eighth inning and then – in a marvelous illustration of the sportsmanship-be-damned nature of the game in those days – added seven more runs in the eighth and a final eight in the ninth.

Shortstop Barry McCormick would bang out six hits that day, and pitcher Jimmy Callahan added five more. None of that helped Chicago in the standings. Eleventh in the 12-team league on the day the game was played, they elevated themselves only to ninth by season’s end.

None of this is offered to sneeze at a team scoring 29 in one game. In fact, that run total has only been reached 11 times previously in major league history. The last to do so were the Texas Rangers, who on Aug. 22, 2007, beat the Baltimore Orioles 30-3.

Here’s a full chronological list of teams that have scored 29 or more runs in a single game.

• Chicago White Stockings 30, Louisville Grays 7, July 22, 1876
• Chicago White Stockings 35, Cleveland Blues 4, July 24, 1882
• Boston Beaneaters 30, Detroit Wolverines 8, June 9, 1883
• Chicago White Stockings 31, Buffalo Bisons 7, July 3, 1883
• Philadelphia Athletics, 30, Buffalo Bisons 12, June 26, 1890
• Milwaukee Brewers 30, Washington Statesmen 3, Sept. 10, 1891
• Cincinnati Reds 30, Louisville Colonels 12, June 18, 1893
• Chicago Colts 36*, Louisville Colonels 7, June 29, 1897
• Boston Red Sox 29, St. Louis Browns 4, June 8, 1950
• Chicago White Sox 29, Kansas City Athletics 6, April 23, 1955
• Texas Rangers 30, Baltimore Orioles 3, Aug. 22, 2007
• Atlanta Braves 29, Miami Marlins 9, Sept. 9, 2020

*major league record