VICTOR, COLORADO — Travis Phillips is a local resident in Victor, Colorado. He came out today to try and watch something that's never happened before: a new Guinness world record set in the town.
"Sometimes it's tough to get excited up in Victor, but today we're doing a great job", said Phillips.
On Saturday, 12 baseball players from across the country got together to fly to the highest elevation baseball field in the country: the Gold Bowl.
Two players from Cal Tech, Thorsen Kristufek and Will Dembski, even started to graph the trajectory of the ball, and how the elevation would affect its position.
"Well, we're out here trying to do something that's like, honestly one of the coolest things I've heard of, hit the farthest home run. Came out to one of the highest elevation baseball field there is, and with some really cool baseball influencers and stuff," said Kristufek.
"Yeah this is a great opportunity, [Kristufek] texted me a couple weeks ago and said 'Do you wanna go hit nukes?' Absolutely!", said Dembski.
The distance the players were trying to reach was 574 feet, the estimated length that Babe Ruth hit a ball back in 1919.
Buck Hakes, Mayor Pro Tem of Victor, said ge and the rest of city council approved the use of the field by the players.
“These guys approached us about 6 or 7 months ago, wanting to set a major league home run record," Hakes said. "City Council decided to go ahead and let them try."
Overseeing the record attempt was Hannah Ortman, an official adjudicator with the Guinness World Records team.
“This is actually a new record created by our records team based on research, so they would be the first ones to set this record if it were to be achieved”, commented Ortman.
The players got close. The farthest ball traveled 534 feet, about 40 feet short of Ruth's record. The outcome didn't dampen the enthusiasm of the players or the spectators from the community came out to watch the action.
Many told News 5 they were happy to see their town in the spotlight.
“If you have an opportunity to break a Guinness world record, especially for something as iconic as the furthest home run ever hit, you wanna take it man, even if you fail”, said Will Taylor with the Youtube Channel The Bat Bros.
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