According to this publication, an online report shows that the longest officially recorded baseball game was set last year in Missouri. The game went 80 hours and consisted of five teams totaling 54 players rotating shifts.
Missouri State University fraternities set the record beginning 6:30 p.m. Oct. 11 and ending 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 15. It broke the record by nearly 6 hours.
Let's beat it! We need about 72 players to set a record that will be extremely tough to beat. I'd like to play 96 hours, or 4 days over a holiday weekend in 2019. There is not enough time to organize it this year. Off the cuff, 3 hours on field, 6 off ... whatever it comes out to, we have to be diligent in retaining the rotation. Three pitchers and two catchers minimum per team, per shift - again, depending on rotation. Something we can iron out by the committee. Safety/health first!
This will take a dedicated effort to organize, so I will need some help as well. No age restrictions, but must be 18 or over.
We will also need a lot of volunteers who will help us raise money for our local injured military veterans and possibly a second charity of our choice.
To set an official Guinness record, we need to have the entire game video-recorded. We will also need umpires, scorekeepers and two witnesses. We must prove w/o a shadow of a doubt that we indeed have set the record. We also must apply to Guinness to be sanctioned, which I will do.
I can get a field with lights. I will try to get either Belizi, Bleecker Stadium or Cook Park.
The record-setting 80-hour game went 248 innings with the final score 569-412.
I will solicit two businesses to sponsor the teams with full uniforms, which we can then autograph and sell them to raise money. Or, you can keep your jersey for a donation that will be donated to the charity of choice by the business that sponsored the uniform. I'd like to put FDNY patches on one of the team jerseys and NYPD on the other. Or perhaps patches of other rescue/service organizations.
We will need volunteers to sell shirts; work concessions, donate coffee!, etc.
Obviously, we will need a few banners, lots of baseballs. Wood bats only.
To get started, I will need a committee of dedicated people who will help organize the event from start to finish and help solicit volunteers. We need to start meeting fairly soon.
This will be an enormous sacrifice by many to pull off. It will be 4 days of baseball and sleep. If we can pull this off, it will be highly rewarding because I believe we can raise $20K to $30K to help our local heroes. I have no doubt that our local media outlets will jump all over this.
If you are interested in helping getting this off the ground, please contact me at jrbtc@aaahawk.com.
