Robert Averill Bonner is a former professional baseball

Professional baseball

Baseball is a team sport which is played by several professional leagues throughout the world. In these leagues, and associated farm teams, players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system....

 player. He played parts of four seasons in Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...

, from 1980 and 1983, all for the Baltimore Orioles

Baltimore Orioles

The Baltimore Orioles are a professional baseball team based in Baltimore, Maryland in the United States. They are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's American League. One of the American League's eight charter franchises in 1901, it spent its first year as a major league...

, primarily as a shortstop

Shortstop

Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball fielding position between second and third base. Shortstop is often regarded as the most dynamic defensive position in baseball, because there are more right-handed hitters in baseball than left-handed hitters, and most hitters have a tendency to pull the...

. Beginning on the evening of April 18, 1981, he had 12 at-bats in the longest professional game ever played, 33 innings, between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings. This epic International League contest is the subject of New York Times columnist Dan Barry's book "Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball's Longest Game" (Harper, 2011).

External links