Did you make it the whole way?
You did, didn’t you? Or you tried. Or you wanted to try. All the elements were in play for you to give it the old college try, even if it meant propping your eyes open with toothpicks: It was Friday, not a school night. It was Yankees-Red Sox, and even if that doesn’t invoke the passions it once did, those uniforms sharing a field still means … well, something.
And, of course, there were some moments of inexplicable delight (peppered in there around a few dull-as-dirt innings) and some moments of remarkable inspiration (located within the wide swatches of inertia) and a genuine feeling of nobody-wants-to-lose-this-game (dueling to the end with nobody-wants-to-win-this-game).
Those 19 innings the Yanks and the Sox played Friday night really were something else, and they emphasize, once again, that deep in every sports fan’s heart there lies a masochist who yearns every now and again for one of these Games That Never End.
It’s why so many people still rhapsodize about that Syracuse-UConn game from a few years ago that, let’s be honest, was being played mostly on a peach-basket level by the fourth or fifth overtime. It’s why playoff hockey games that stretch toward last call are so arresting, and why the OT rules in football, both American and worldwide, generally are so unsatisfying.
And why extra innings in baseball are so unique. Because there really is the possibility the game might never end (please read my friend Dan Barry’s book “Bottom of the 33rd” if you haven’t already), which baseball fans tattoo to their souls as badges of honor. And also the likelihood stuff will happen that shouldn’t happen but invariably does. Extra-inning marathons are like riding a unicycle for the first time: The longer it lasts, the more harrowing it gets.
Think about all the things that have to go right for someone to hit a home run anyway — bad pitch location, good swing, a perfect storm of timing, luck and skill — and then think about how close that game came to being a ho-hum 3-2 Red Sox win until Chase Headley sent a ball soaring into the night.
Think about how unlikely it is for a team to escape not one, not two, but three separate last-licks deficits.
Think about the poor guy in the press box who, around 9 o’clock or so, invariably muttered, to no one in particular, “This game is humming right along!” and thereby angered the Deadline Gods beyond belief (you know who you are). Think about how tired these players had to be, how poor Esmil Rogers probably wanted to go ahead and throw left-handed by the end, how Hanley Ramirez stopped pretending altogether in the 18th inning and clearly begged to be thrown out at third base by 89 ½ feet (the Yankees gladly obliging). Think about the level of skill and will required to turn that stylish 6-4-3 double-play that ended it at last, just past 2 in the morning.
Think about this: There were 628 pitches thrown.
All that was missing was a position player pitching (which we would have had if the game had gone 20), and a pitcher playing a position (which also would’ve happened, since the Yankees were out of options).
That’s how the Mets won a surreal marathon in St. Louis a couple of years ago.
Afterward, manager Joe Girardi looked like he had just ran the Boston and New York Marathons back-to-back, backward. Afterward, Dustin Pedroia spotted veteran Boston radio man Jonny Miller, a guy who for whom almost every Red Sox player through the years has had great affection, and said, “Jonny, I’m fining any player who talks to the media tonight. It’s 2 in the morning.”
He was kidding. Maybe.
These are the kind of games the late Ernie Banks absolutely would have adored, let’s-play-two-and-then-a-little-more-too, and though it isn’t as much fun if you’re a Yankees fan, as a baseball fan you can take a bow for sticking with it to the bitter end. Even if that was only in theory, and not practice.
Whack Back at Vac
Guy Miller: If a golfer were really serious about winning the Masters, don’t you think they would want an outfit for Sunday that actually matched a green jacket? Rickie Fowler is wearing orange pants Sunday. Would he really want to look like Aquaman at the ceremony?
Vac: I’ve always thought that was the coolest thing about Jack Nicklaus in ’86. He wore a color-appropriate outfit Sunday afternoon. Just in case.
Ray Martin: Apparently the “Kentucky-fried handshake” actually exists. Maybe they should get Cauley-Stein and the Harrisons to endorse it
Vac: It’s sort of funny that Coach Life Skills Calipari droned on and on about what classy and sporting kids the Wildcats were, which they seemed like … until some of them actually had to show some class and sportsmanship.
@GaryLevick13: I can’t wait to see Matt Harvey in pinstripes. As Scott Boras said, the Mets shop in the discount section of the market.
@MikeVacc: And there you have the 10,000-pound elephant that will be paying rent in the room for the next few years.
Alan Hirschberg: Friday’s game was somehow reassuring. Even Matt Harvey can’t remove the dumb baseball from the Mets’ DNA.
Vac: And there’s the 10,000-pound elephant’s partner.
Vac’s Whacks
“Seinfeld” originally was supposed to follow that Yankees/Red Sox game on Ch. 11 on Friday night. After a while there, I thought we might wind up with the Yule Log instead by the time things wrapped up.
There are a lot of Islanders fans who also are Mets fans. They most certainly did not deserve what looked like might be coming down the pike for them until they dove across the finish line.
We’ve made fun of the word “groovy” ever since “The Brady Bunch” went off the air, but, seriously, how else are you supposed to adequately describe Roger Sterling’s mustache?
I don’t think it was just the Knicks and Nets among the locals who shook their heads grimly at how prospective free agents might interpret what happened at 1Oak the other night.