50 Inning Japanese High School Game

[Kliq]

Saw this story on Yahoo: During the semi-finals of a tournament, Chukyo High School and Sotoku High School were tied at 0-0 heading into the 50th inning, when Chukyo managed to score three runs and win the game. http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/japanese-high-school-game-spans-four-days-and-50-innings-171615112.html
 
Amazingly, BOTH starting pitchers went the distance.

 

Amazingly and ridiculously, both starting pitchers went the distance during the marathon. Chukyo starting pitcher Taiga Matsui threw 709 pitches and allowed 26 hits over his 50 innings.
 
His counterpart, Jukiya Ishioka of Sotoku, totaled 689 pitches and allowed 22 hits.
 

 
The game spaned four days, broken up into 15 innings a day, but still, it's amazing the difference in pitching philosophy the Japanese and the American's have. If that wasn't insane enough, in the final game, Chukyo brought on Matsui in relief, tossing 77 more pitches, bringing his four day total to 786. Stephen Strasburg's shoulder hurts just reading that last sentence.

 

[Tokyo Sox]

Had a couple different people send me this story overnight.  Pretty insane.  Slight caveat, not that it really matters because it's absurd, but it's not a normal baseball -- for whatever reason these teams play nanshiki yakyuu which uses a rubber ball.  It's kind of like a batting cage ball, but maybe a bit lighter/softer.
 
Usually nanshiki is used in elementary school, and adult leagues.  I didn't realize until seeing this story that they ever used it in high school.