Friday, April 18, 2008
That was a looooong game
Posted by Sal BaxamusaLast night, my infant son woke us up at 4 am. It was your typical night-waking: I picked him up, shooshed him in his ear, rocked him for a few minutes, and he went right back to sleep. He was asleep, but now I was wide awake. I stumbled out to the living room, fired up the computer, and figured I could catch up on the scores for the west coast games. I live in the Northeast, so there's plenty of baseball going on around the time I hit the sack.
Imagine my surprise when I clicked over to MLB.com and found that the Rockies-Padres tilt was still going! It took my sleepy mind a few minutes to compute...4 am...game started at 10 pm...six hours...holy crap! Six hours! Clearly, my son was trying to let me know that I shouldn't miss the end of this game - and I didn't.
By the end of the game, Kip Wells and Glendon Rusch were pitching, and I can only imagine that their respective managers told them that the game was theirs to win or lose. The teams combined for 37 strikeouts but drew only 7 walks. Fifteen pitchers contributed over 650 pitches. Randy Wolf got into the game as a pinch hitter...but didn't pitch!
Baseball needs crazy games like this. I love it!
Box score
Sal Baxamusa is a graduate student in chemical engineering. He can be reached here.