After 72 hours, 237 innings, a torn ACL and a broken foot, 56 players finally did it.
The longest baseball game ever – pending an official confirmation from the Guinness World Records – was played at the Edmonton Ballpark.
It is fitting that this valiant effort to raise money for the Alberta Cancer Society took place during Labour Day weekend.
“It’s hard on the body. It’s sprinting, it’s stopping, starting,” Dr. Brent Saik told CTV Edmonton after the game he organized came to an end.
Saik, like most of the players who took the field over the weekend, has a history with cancer.
While he was organizing what became the longest hockey game ever years ago, his then-wife died. And more recently, it was his father, which prompted Saik to once again stand up to a disease that affects so many, with many people, for many hours.
And while breaking the record is good, raising $250,000 is better.
“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.”
Final score: 378 for Team Cure, 269 for Team Hope.
However, both teams hope the money they raised is a win for cure, too.
With files from Jeremy Thompson
