The longest professional baseball game ever played was a 33‑inning minor league matchup between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings in 1981, which took 8 hours and 25 minutes of game time and was finished over two different days.

Quick Scoop

  • Longest pro game overall:
    The Pawtucket Red Sox (Triple‑A affiliate of Boston) and the Rochester Red Wings (then a Baltimore affiliate) played 33 innings in 1981, the longest professional baseball game in history by innings.
  • Length of time:
    The game lasted 8 hours and 25 minutes of playing time, with 32 innings played overnight on April 18–19, 1981, and the final 33rd inning completed on June
  • Final score and finish:
    Pawtucket won 3–2 when Dave Koza hit a walk‑off single in the bottom of the 33rd, ending a marathon that had started months earlier.

MLB vs. All Professional Baseball

  • All professional levels:
    The 33‑inning Pawtucket vs. Rochester game holds the record for the longest professional baseball game ever played.
  • Major League Baseball only:
    In MLB, the longest game by innings was a 26‑inning 1–1 tie between the Brooklyn Robins (now Dodgers) and Boston Braves on May 1, 1920, which was called due to darkness after 3 hours and 50 minutes.

Why It Became Legendary

  • Overnight grind:
    In the Pawtucket–Rochester game, players, umpires, and a small group of fans endured play past 4 a.m. before the league president finally ordered the game stopped, with the score still tied.
  • Two‑day (really, two‑month) saga:
    The game resumed more than two months later, on June 23, 1981, and was finished in just 18 minutes, turning a bizarre, exhausting night into a famous piece of baseball folklore.

If you’re asking “what was the longest baseball game,” the short answer is: 33 innings, Pawtucket Red Sox vs. Rochester Red Wings in 1981 (overall pro record), and 26 innings, Brooklyn Robins vs. Boston Braves in 1920 for MLB.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.