Record-Attempt For Longest Baseball Game Falls Short

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A local attempt to break the record for the world's longest baseball game came to a premature end late Tuesday evening.

The group PDH Baseball (Pitching Hitting Defense Baseball) was aiming to play 72 hours straight to raise money for the Masonic Cancer Center at the University of Minnesota. They were trying to pull off the record at the Metrodome.

They called it quits at 10:30 p.m. after 40 hours, 15 minutes and 26 seconds. In all, they managed to play through 169 innings. They were hoping to play roughly 300 innings.

Organizers say the reason they called off the attempt was because there were fears some players would suffer permanent injury if they continued. Many players were starting to throw balls underhand because of fatigue.

Organizers say they could have had 18 more players to qualify for the record, but did not have that many to play in the game.

The longest game and benchmark PDH Baseball was hoping to surpass, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, was 60 hours, 11 minutes and 32 seconds.

The game PDH Baseball managed to play still counts as the fourth longest baseball game in history, organizers said.

They plan on trying to break the record again next year.