Photographing the Longest World Series Game Ever

Full Frame is Sports Illustrated’s exclusive newsletter for subscribers, highlighting the stories and personalities behind some of SI’s photography every other week.

To get the best of SI in your inbox every weekday, sign up here. To see even more from SI’s photographers, follow @sifullframe on Instagram. If you missed our story on Zion Williamson’s November 2022 cover, you can find it here.

This piece was originally published in the November 2022 issue of SI.

As Game 3 of the 2018 World Series wore on—and on, and on—fans at Dodger Stadium began hitting the exits. That was good news for Erick W. Rasco. The photographer was shooting from the stands, roaming from vantage point to vantage point, and the increasing number of empty seats allowed him to gradually work himself down closer to the field.

By the time the 18th inning rolled around, Rasco was behind the plate, within arm’s length of Red Sox fan Conan O’Brien. With the game already in the record books as the longest in Series history, Rasco knew the shot he wanted to capture: a tableau of the final play.

“It was important to get the full scoreboard with the clock, players and the fans in the foreground,” he says.

So we know it was precisely half past midnight—seven hours and 20 minutes after the first pitch—when Max Muncy ended the game with a walk-off bomb, giving L.A. a 3–2 win, its only victory in the five-game series.

To Rasco, though, it was 3:30. His body was still on East Coast time after flying in to Los Angeles from Boston earlier that day and then spending eight hours at the park, constantly on the move. Says Rasco, “It was a whirlwind.”

Have questions, comments, or feedback about Sports Illustrated‘s newsletters? Send a note to josh.rosenblat@si.com.