237 innings and 647 runs: Bid for world's longest baseball game wraps up

Players complete bid for longest baseball game After 237 innings in 72 hours, 56 baseball players made history while they raised $250,000 for the Alberta Cancer Foundation.

A group of Alberta baseball players played the equivalent of a month’s worth of Major League games in just one weekend, in a fundraising event for cancer.

The longest baseball game ever – pending official confirmation from Guinness World Records – was played at the Edmonton Ballpark.

Fifty-six players hit, ran and fielded for 72 hours, playing a total of 237 innings. They scored a total of 647 runs, just 22 fewer than the Blue Jays have plated all season.

The players battled rain, chilly temperatures and a couple of serious injuries, including a broken foot and a torn ACL.

“It’s hard on the body. It’s sprinting, it’s stopping, starting,” organizer Dr. Brent Saik told CTV Edmonton after the game ended.

Saik, like many of the players who took the field over the weekend, has a personal connection with cancer. He lost his father and his first wife to the disease. Saik, an optometrist who works with many Alberta athletes, first organized a bid for the world’s longest hockey game in 2003, when his wife Susan was ill with non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

In 2015, a fifth record-breaking shinny marathon lasted for a staggering 11 days.

This year’s effort on the baseball diamond raised $250,000 for the Alberta Cancer Foundation.

“To raise a quarter-of-a-million bucks is unbelievable,” Saik said. “I really appreciate the trust that people have in us to know that what we are going to do is going to help. This thing has saved lives and every one of these players know that and that’s why they come here.”

One weary player credited the boost from supporters posting notes on coloured paper in the locker room, including: “You guys are amazing. Keep it up!” and “Good luck! You are inspiring,” for keeping him on his feet.

“I went to the bathroom halfway through my shift and just a little card on the wall that just pushed me through, took away the aches and pains."

Another player was overcome with emotion after the game when recounting that his father is cancer-free after battling a rare form of eye cancer diagnosed by Saik.

If confirmed, the Edmonton baseball game would break a record of 70 hours, 9 minutes set in Sauget, Ill. in May, 2015.

With a report by CTV Edmonton’s Jeremy Thompson