Major League Baseball, the Cincinnati Reds, Chevrolet and GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ are joining together to attempt to set the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS title for the Largest Game of Catch during MLB All-Star Week in Cincinnati. The event, which will be presented by Chevrolet, will be held at the P&G Cincinnati MLB Urban Youth Academy on Thursday, July 9th at 6:00 p.m. ET. The new All-Star event is part of MLB’s focus on engaging young people with the game of baseball.
In order for the record to be set, a minimum of 250 pairs of young people (ages 8 – 18) must participate in the game of catch. The overall event will be open to the general public, with those within the age range of 8-18 eligible to participate in the record-setting attempt.
You have to register (do so here). Weird part: it says “space is limited” in the promo, which seems like it goes against the spirit of setting a record. I mean, do you think Billy and Benny McCrary decided “whoa, we shouldn’t go over 600 pounds each” to achieve their “World’s Heaviest Twins” record? No! They pushed that damn envelope, got on their motorcycles and made history. “Space is limited.” Indeed.
Anyway, the highest best use of this record would be for someone at Guinness to officially declare the term “play catch” as the official nomenclature as opposed to “have a catch” which is just dumb and wrong. While they’re at it, they can make sure they standardize “wait in line” over “wait on line” which is also incorrect. I mean, if it appears that way in Guinness, it has to be official. That was my takeaway from reading the Book of World Records obsessively when I was young.
