LITTLE FALLS, N.J. – On a sunny, 72-degree day, the last weekend afternoon of summer, 2,358 people paired off on the field at Yogi Berra Stadium to play catch.
Parents and children of all ages, siblings, friends, colleagues, former Major Leaguers – they all came out on Sunday for an official attempt at setting a new Guinness World Record for the Largest Game of Catch. Eve Schaenen, the executive director of the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center, wanted to honor the Hall of Famer’s legacy as part of the yearlong celebration of the 100th anniversary of his birth. A game of catch – Yogi’s Big Catch, as it was dubbed – seemed like the perfect commemoration.
The 1,179 pairs of participants lined up three meters apart on the turf field of the stadium on the campus of Montclair State University, and for five minutes they tossed the ball back and forth – underhand or overhand, it didn’t matter. There were two basic rules for everyone on the field: No rolling the ball and no looking at your smartphones. No selfies or Tik Tok posts – the whole point was to come together and have fun.
After a digital clock on the video board had finished counting down the five minutes, everybody relaxed and applauded their efforts … and then waited. It took another several minutes for the yellow-shirted stewards – volunteers on the field who walked among the tossers, looking for violations – to submit their findings and for Michael Empric, the adjudicator from Guinness, to verify the results. At 1:51 p.m. ET, he stepped to the microphone on the stage set up on the center-field warning track.
“I can now announce that today, in Little Falls, N.J., USA, you had a total of 1,179 pairs – it’s a new Guinness World Record title!” Empric said. “Congratulations, you are officially amazing! Great job!”
The crowd cheered. Schaenen beamed and held up the official certificate from Guinness. Berra’s sons Larry, Tim and Dale, and his oldest grandchild, Lindsay, celebrated on the stage while dozens of other family members applauded from the field.
“I can’t believe it!” Schaenen said afterward in an interview. “Here’s the thing – I can’t believe it, and I can totally believe it, you know? There’s so much love for Yogi Berra out there. The response to him, and then you add a catch into the mix, what that means for people in their hearts, like how they form a connection [with someone]. When the adjudicator said put your phones away for five minutes and connect with the person you’re playing with, that’s a beautiful thing in this world we’re living in, and I think that had a lot of resonance with folks.”
The previous record for the largest game of catch was held by Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill. On June 18, 2017, at a Father’s Day event called Dadfest, 972 pairs – or 1,944 individuals – played catch. Yogi’s Big Catch drew 207 more pairs, with former Major Leaguers Ron Guidry, Willie Randolph, Rick Cerone, Chris Capuano and Jason Grilli among them.
“This was fun because this is for the city of Montclair and for the museum,” said Guidry, whose close relationship with Berra was the subject of the book “Driving Mr. Yogi.” “It’s like I told the kids: Remember where you were today, because the city of Montclair, how many other times have they had their name in the Guinness Book of World Records? Never. So now, the Yogi Berra Museum and the city of Montclair, N.J., have etched their names in the Guinness book. How many people get to say that?”
While Yankees caps and jerseys were prevalent among attendees (if they weren’t covered up by the Yogi’s Big Catch T-shirts that were handed out), it was more than local residents taking part.
“I talked to people from Florida, from Seattle, from North Carolina,” Lindsay Berra said afterward. “People flew in to come play catch with us, which is pretty cool. [There were] 50-somethings here with their 80-something-year-old parents. Lots of little kids, obviously, and it’s just really cool to see so many generations out here just doing something that we all love. We all love playing baseball, we all love having a catch, and we don’t do it nearly enough.”
Though the official record only required a five-minute catch session, dozens of people remained on the field after the announcement to continue throwing the ball back and forth – and at greater distances. The former players signed some autographs and posed for some pictures – as did Empric, the Guinness adjudicator, who explained that there were very few violations.
“There were some phone violations, and also there was some rolling of the ball,” he said. “When we say catch, we want people to play to the best of their ability. That does involve throwing the ball, not rolling it. There weren’t a lot of deductions, though. For a group this size, I think eight pairs were deducted, which was minimal.”
Emmy-winning broadcaster Bob Costas was on hand for opening remarks and introductions, but he also brought his glove with him.
“I don’t think there was much at stake from the standpoint of the quality of pitching or catching,” he said afterward, “but there was something at stake in terms of the Guinness World Record, and I think everybody here is delighted to be able to say that they were part of it.”
He also appreciated Empric’s role in the record attempt.
“The guy from the Guinness Book of Records has to be [firm], because people would just be making up nonsense, proclaiming records left and right,” Costas said. “So even though it’s kind of just for fun, he’s got to take it seriously or else there’s no credibility to the Guinness Book of Records. So I was glad he was here. And he was a very good-natured guy, a very nice guy, but he was going to make sure that if he declared it a record, that it really was.”
As the record-setting participants left the field, many of them lined up on the concourse and up the stairs to enter the museum, the line snaking through the exhibit areas to the theater, where Berra’s plaque from the Hall of Fame was on display for the afternoon, the first time it has left Cooperstown. There was also a banner for the attendees to sign, which will be put on display in the museum alongside the official Guinness certification.
The line through the museum was long, but nobody waiting seemed to complain. They’d just set a new world record, and soon they’d get a chance to have a moment with the Yogi Berra plaque, in New Jersey.
“Eve, our museum director, wanted to come up with some cool way to honor Grandpa’s 100th birthday,” Lindsay Berra said, “and you hear all the stories about how Grandpa was able to connect with people, whether he met them or not. He meant something to so many people, and she thought what better way to foster that sense of connection than to have everybody come out and have a catch.”
Even now, 100 years after his birth and one day short of 10 years since his death, Yogi’s still bringing people together.
MLB.com national correspondent Alyson Footer contributed reporting.
