"In baseball, you can't kill the clock. You've got to give the other man his chance. That's why this is the greatest game."
That quote from legendary Orioles manager and unforgettable character Earl Weaver was proven true last night in a sequence of events that went beyond simply defying the odds. We’ve all seen comebacks before. We’ve all seen the underdog triumph. Baseball, football, hockey, basketball, etc. They all have such stories. But anyone who was watching ESPN and/or MLB Network last night witnessed something that we’ve never seen before and most likely never will again.
Before you can truly appreciate the night itself however, you have to know how it came to have any significance at all. At the beginning of September baseball’s eight post-season teams were a foregone conclusion. The Rangers, Tigers, Yankees, and Red Sox would be going from the American League. The Diamondbacks, Brewers, Phillies, and Braves from the National. The closest thing to a race was a contest between the two most obnoxious fan bases in all of American sports for whose sack of cash could win the AL East. The other would simply claim the Wild Card thus sapping any sense of drama the race could have had. But as the final weeks of the season played out something started to happen. In the National League the Braves started losing while the Cardinals, thought to be left for dead, began to surge. Meanwhile in the American League the wheels started coming loose on the Boston Bandwagon. Down the coast in Tampa Bay the Rays began to creep up silently behind the BoSox. The Rays accomplished this in large part by doing what a team must do in these situations, which is beat the very team you’re chasing when given the opportunity. Over two weekends and seven games head-to-head the Rays won six against Boston.
Still the Rays and Cardinals seemed to be running out of schedule. Surely they would falter and the Red Sox and Braves would survive. But the losing just continued in Boston and Atlanta, while St. Louis and Tampa Bay kept finding ways to win. Finally after 161 games the Red Sox and the Braves had improbably been caught. With just one night remaining on the schedule everything was up in the air. Would Boston and Atlanta escape? Would the Rays and Cardinals complete their comebacks? Or would we see one or even two one-game playoffs to determine the fourth and final playoff spot in each league? As the night unfolded we got more than an answer to these questions. We saw something incredibly special.
I’ll begin with the not so special. After a 5 run first inning the Cardinals took care of business against the dog’s-breath worst team in baseball, the Houston Astros. With their 8-0 victory the Braves would have to defeat the Phillies (who’d long since punched their playoff ticket and had nothing at stake) in order to force the one-game playoff in St. Louis. It seemed that was going to happen as the Braves took a 3-2 lead into the top of the 9th inning, with rookie sensation Craig Kimbrel on to close. This is where it starts getting special. Playing to win in spite of not needing to, the Phillies tied the game against the typically lights out Kimbrel. The Braves fought for their lives but in the top of the 13th Philadelphia took a 4-3 lead, one they would not relinquish. Champagne corks began to pop in the visitor’s locker room in Houston.
While all of this transpired the American League appeared to be largely drama free. With the Red Sox leading the Orioles 3-2 in the 7th inning it began to rain in Baltimore. As the tarp was rolled out onto the field the Bandwagon seemed neatly perched in the cat bird’s seat. Yes, they led by only a run but the Yankees were delivering a 7-0 smack down on the Almost Miracle Rays. But as the rain continued to shower on Camden Yards the Rays bats suddenly came to life at Tropicana Field. In the bottom of the 8th inning, after several fans had headed for the exits, Tampa Bay scored three runs. Evan Longoria’s three run homer then cut New York ’s lead to 7-6. As this unfolded the skies began to clear in Crabtown and the nauseatingly awful members of Red Sox Nation who’d invaded Oriole Park became uneasy.
With the tarp off of the field the O’s and Red Sox prepared to resume their battle. But moments before they would, the Yankees looked to be finishing off the Rays. With two out and nobody on Rays manager Joe Maddon sent a largely ineffective pinch hitter to the plate. Dan Johnson didn’t have much of a batting average to boast of this year and frankly I doubt many baseball fans outside of Tampa even knew his name. Gambling on the hopes of a home run (Johnson does possess a little pop), Maddon called his number. “Talk about a roll of the dice,” Vin Scully once said in a similar situation. “This is it!”
Like the Phillies, the Yankees had long since clinched their post-season berth. This was a game they didn’t need to win. Had it been, manager Joe Girardi surely would have called upon the Closer-Tron 3000 to break his own save record one more time. But he didn’t. Still with two outs, no one on, and two strikes on Johnson it seemed that the Rays would have to hope for the Orioles to come back to beat the Red Sox and force a one-game playoff. Whatever happened next this game was a microcosm of Tampa Bay ’s season. Far behind and with time running out in their season they were looking for a miracle. Would their surge fall just short? Or would the Tampa Bay Rays achieve the impossible? With the season on the line Johnson drove a line shot off of the foul pole in right field. I watched in utter amazement as he ran the bases having just tied the game at 7 a piece. This couldn’t have happened. But it had. I would later learn that the Yankees hadn’t blown a lead that large that late since 1953.
With all bets off in Florida the Red Sox would need to take care of their own business. The long suffering Orioles, who were finishing their 14th consecutive losing season weren’t making it easy however. A base running hiccup by Marco Scutaro and a tailor made double play with the bases loaded enabled the Orioles to prevent Boston from adding some late insurance runs. The Rays also staved off some Yankee threats to keep the game tied in Tampa. It was now the 12th inning there. In Baltimore it was the bottom of the 9th.
In 2011 the Boston Red Sox were 76-0 when leading after 8 innings. Throughout his career closer Jonathan Papelbon has been a virtual sure thing. With the look of fierce determination he recorded the first two outs and Oriole third baseman Chris Davis had never had success against the Boston fireman. With every shot of the crowd in Baltimore my soul vomited upon itself. Insufferable fraudulent Red Sox fans were shouting and taunting my beloved Birds in their own ballpark. I sat there and stewed watching yet another lousy season end unceremoniously for my favorite team since childhood. But Davis got a good pitch to hit and drove it into right field for a double. A win wouldn’t get the Orioles into the playoffs. It wouldn’t even do the next best thing, which would be to keep the Yankees out. But the next best thing to the next best thing was possible. Tearing the wheels off of the Boston Bandwagon. As Nolan Reimold stepped to the plate I spoke with my dad on the phone, commiserating over how exciting these games were turning out to be. With two strikes the steely-eyed Papelbon delivered the pitch and Reimold stroked it into right center field.
In an outburst that could very well have frightened my neighbors I screamed with joy, jumping up and down, proudly wearing my Orioles hat. Reimold’s ground rule double had tied the game. The Bandwagon was now dangling from a cliff. Then at two minutes past midnight Baltimore time (thankfully much earlier for me) Robert Andino hit a line shot into left field. Leaping out of my chair I held my breath to see if the ball would drop or be caught by left fielder Carl Crawford. As Admiral Ackbar would say, “It’s a trap!” The ball dropped just under Crawford’s glove. The man who had left Tampa Bay after last season in the pursuit of a bigger paycheck would have to make an incredible throw to get Reimold at the plate.
I knew it wouldn’t put the Orioles in the post-season. I know it will probably be a very long time before they get there again. But the way I was screaming with joy when Nolan Reimold scored the winning run would have led you to believe they’d just won the World Series. This meant something to me. In all my years of watching sports there have been only a handful of moments in which I’ve felt this level of elation. My O’s had delivered the death blow to the worst fans in baseball.
The Bandwagon now hung by a thread. All the Red Sox could do now was watch and hope that the Yankees could pull it out in Tampa, keeping them alive for one more day. ESPN cut away from Baltimore while "Orioles Magic" blared over the Camden Yards loudspeakers. Merely three minutes after Reimold had scored in Maryland Evan Longoria was stepping to the plate in Florida. Talking to my friend Brad on the phone to celebrate the Oriole victory I saw Longoria get ahold of a pitch in the bottom of the 12th. "Longoria just hit a home run!" I shouted into the phone. The Rays had completed the comeback. For the game and the Wild Card. With a payroll less than a quarter than that of the Red Sox, the Tampa Bay Rays had gotten into the playoffs against all odds and for the the third time in four years.
There have been and will be better individual games than the ones played on Wednesday night. But I cannot imagine another night like this one in which the stars aligned just perfectly for all of these things to unfold. And it only could have happened in baseball. In football the Yankees could have simply "kept the ball on the ground" with a lead that big. All before finally taking a knee. In basketball they could have essentially played "keep away" from the Rays, repeatedly draining the 24 second shot clock. But this was baseball. They had to give the Rays their chance. The Red Sox had to give the Orioles theirs. Again Vin Scully says it best. "In a year that has been so improbable...the IMPOSSIBLE has happened." That's what makes it the greatest game.
