Skip to main content

Wow... I Mean... Wow

If you didn't watch baseball last night you missed it. There will never be another night like it while you or I are still breathing.

Granted, what made it even more special for me is that every team I wanted to win (Cards, Phillies, Orioles, and Rays) did so... but still, even if one of your teams lost you had to think last night was special.

The most thrilling night in baseball history

Generally I'm very much against instant proclamations of "best ever" — but Wednesday night was unquestionably the most thrilling night of baseball in my lifetime. It doesn't matter who you root for. I've just seen the pinnacle, and I'm going to savor it. I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep for a while.

I'm not going to try to sum up the night at length, you surely had an eye and an ear on the action. You saw Evan Longoria(notes) and Dan Johnson(notes) playing hero in Tampa Bay. You saw the scrappy Orioles breaking Jonathan Papelbon's(notes) heart. You saw the tired and weary Atlanta relievers finally give against Philadelphia.

There were four critical games on the MLB schedule Wednesday and three of them saw a blown save with two outs in the ninth inning. You can't script this type of thing; if you saw this story in a movie theatre, you'd walk out, ticked off and muttering to yourself. Sports are the ultimate reality show, nothing decided ahead of time. You have to watch for yourself, no one gets to know the conclusion ahead of time.

It is a point worth remembering, especially for myself. In many ways my view of the Cardinals this season was a lot like those fans in Tampa who started leaving in the 7th inning last night because the Rays were down seven runs. It was a big mistake. Lord knows I've made that same mistake about the Cards several times over this season.

Now it is time to just enjoy the ride.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Matt Damon: "James Bond Should Be A Wuss, Like Me."

Alright, maybe Damon didn't say that exactly, but he might as well have : Hollywood star Matt Damon has dismissed James Bond as being stuck in the past. The actor, who appears in the Bourne thrillers, said: "The Bond character will always be anchored in the 1960s and in the values of the 1960s." The suave spy was "so anachronistic when you put it in the world we live in today", he said, but added that Bourne was no better or worse than Bond. Damon was speaking in London, where The Bourne Ultimatum, the third film in the franchise, is having its UK premiere. "Bond is an imperialist and a misogynist who kills people and laughs about it, and drinks Martinis and cracks jokes," he told reporters. "Bourne is a serial monogamist whose girlfriend is dead and he does nothing but think about her." Bourne mooning over his dead girlfriend is something we should be excited to see? Give me a break. At least Bond lives in a world where it is killed or be ki...

A Note of Optimism About the Note

 If you have been trying to watch the St. Louis Blues attempt to play hockey of late it would be hard to believe the word optimism could ever be in play. The losses continue relentlessly, often in the "never in the game" style, but increasingly in a "lose from winning position" flair which is enough to make someone turn on the news for an upbeat change of pace. (Wow, plane crashes and LUNACY!) This team still can't score with the regularity needed to win consistently in this league. The coaching staff knows they have precious few natural goal scorers (one is precious few), so they attempt to make up for it by getting what I call "process" goals, i.e. goals scored by virtue of constant pressure, crazy bounces, accidental deflections, etc. Basically, any goal you can get from a player who doesn't have the knack for scoring them on their own. The Blues are something like zero for their last 12-15 breakaway chances, and zero for their last 25-30 2 on 1...

MLS Descent To Garbage League Continues

Good fucking God almighty. I worried going into this season that referees might "magically" give a boat load of breaks to the Galaxy so that when Beckham returns he would be "playing for something." Look at this " penalty " and tell me what you think. DC was robbed pure and simple. So, was this a case of mind-blowing incompetence or a mandate from the league office? Time will tell. (Really that is the worst penalty call I've ever seen.)