Chicago Cubs have plenty of experience in torturous, extra-inning baseball

As the Chicago Cubs sat at home last weekend, we witnessed one of the longest, perhaps most bizarre game in postseason history in the World Series.

The Chicago Cubs and the rest of the baseball world were treated to an instant classic late Friday night and very early Saturday morning. Game 3 of the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers turned into a wacky, record-setting, marathon that would seemingly never end.

The Dodgers ended up beating the Red Sox 3-2 in 18 innings in the longest World Series game ever. Previously a Fall Classic game had never exceeded 14 innings.

The contest lasted seven hours and 20 minutes – the longest game in postseason history by nearly an hour. The previous record was Game 2 of the 2014 NLDS between the Washington Nationals and San Francisco Giants, which lasted six hours and 23 minutes.

To put time in some even more crazy perspective, Game 3 took longer than the entire 1939 World Series between the New York Yankees and Cincinnati Reds. The Yankees swept the Reds in four games that spanned just seven hours and five minutes total. Just think about that for a second, the entire 1939 World Series was 15 minutes shorter than just Game 3.

In Game 3, 46 of the 50 players available between both teams were used, also a World Series record. The only four players that didn’t make an appearance were Boston’s Drew Pomeranz and Chris Sale and Los Angeles’ Rich Hill and Hyun-Jin Ryu. Each team also used nine pitchers to combine for 18 total in the game. Which, you guessed it, is a Fall Classic record.