5. Baseball: Rochester Red Wings vs. Pawtucket Red Sox
Total Time: 33 innings (nearly 9 hours)
The longest recorded professional baseball game took place in 1981 between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings, two Triple-A clubs. The game started around 8 p.m. on April 18 and continued on into the early morning of Easter Sunday with the score deadlocked at 2-2. Despite the fact that both a young Wade Boggs and Cal Ripken, Jr. were among the players on the field, hits were extremely hard to come by, and the game was finally suspended by the league president just after 4 a.m. on Sunday morning. Of the 2,000-plus fans that had started the night, only 19 remained, and each one was given season tickets by Pawtucket’s team owner. Amazingly, the game was not resumed for another 65 days—the next time the Red Wings were in town—and when it was finally restarted it had become front page news around the country.
Over 5,000 fans packed the stadium to see the end of the longest game of all time. Unfortunately, the game ended rather anticlimactically. After just one inning and 18 minutes of play, Pawtucket player Dave Coza hit a weak single to left field, sending teammate Marty Barrett home to score the winning run in the bottom of the 33
rd inning. The game has since gone down in baseball lore as one of the most famous professional contests of all time. It is featured in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and in 2006 the Pawtucket Red Sox held a celebration to commemorate the 25
th anniversary of their legendary win.