Originally Posted by scoho

You're missing a cage, not a race. The race is the grooved surface (in the case of loose bearings: one in the cup, one on the cone) that the balls roll against.

You can install a loose ball bottom bracket without cages, no problem. You just need to use plenty of grease to hold the balls in place in the cup during installation. The only catch is that you have to add extra balls (I think two*, in the case of the Sugino) to make up for the extra space left over since the cage fingers are no longer taking up space between the balls. The good news is that you can buy top of the line grade 25 balls cheaply and easily, for example here. Go ahead and replace all the balls at once instead of adding to the old balls; otherwise you risk uneven rolling/wear with a mixed set.

*You want about one ball's width left over when the balls are packed around the cup race.