The best baseball game ever - Red Sox v. Tigers, ACLS Game 2, 2013
The single most exhilarating event I've ever witnessed in baseball was last night's grand slam home run in the 8th inning by Big Papi, David Ortiz, designated hitter for the Boston Red Sox. I haven't come down yet.
On the first pitch, with bases loaded, Papi unleashes. Fenway Park went absolutely berzerk.
The whole inning just kept setting up for this incredible moment. . . .
Here's six seconds of me and Grayson just before the game!
The first seven innings were just depressing. After losing 1-0 in Game 1, the Red Sox were unable to touch the ball against pitcher Max Scherzer, the pitcher with one brown and one blue eye. On the big board in center field, his profiile picture displayed his eyes at about a foot tall. He struck out 13 Red Sox batters in 7 complete and demoralizing innings. We were getting killed. Fans kept excoriating the Red Sox: "hit . . . the . . . ball", or jeering, "Hit Scherzer in the eye. Hit him in the brown eye." It didn't work. He was dominant. I don't know why the Tigers took him out of the game in the 8th.
We, us Red Sox, gave up a run in the 2nd on a double by Martinez and a single by Avila. The game stayed stuck at 1-0 until the Tigers drove in four runs on a Cabrera solo home run, two doubles by Fielder and Martinez, and a two-run homer by Avila. That would be all for the Tigers, though. They had absolutely no chance of overcoming the crowd noise and unbelievable, almost supernatural, support urging the Red Sox to win in the 9th inning. Nothing could have made the Red Sox lose this game after Ortiz's shot.
The first sense that we were going to come from behind to win came in the bottom of the 6th, when Shane Victorino switch-hit, batting right-handed, and singled, and Dustin Pedroia drove him in, all the way from first base, on a double to center field. Ortiz struck out to end the inning, but 5-1? No problem: we were going to come back. The sense of destiny was palpable. A group consciousness of a historic game in the making.
Bottom of the 8th. The Tigers put Veras on the mound, and Drew grounds out. Then Middlebrooks brings the stadium to its feet with a double that laced into the left field corner. It was 5-1, and there was more than hope. There was a kind of confident buzz of assurance that the Red Sox were about to come from behind to win, just as the Patriots had done a few hours earlier.
The Tigers change pitchers, and Smyly immediately walk Jacoby Ellsbury. With men on first and second, the Tigers change pitchers again. The crowd is, quite frankly, impatient. Albuquerque, with the unfortunate first name of Al, strikes out Victorino. Two outs. Dustin Pedroia up. Sure, if Pedroia hit a homer, the score would only be 5-4, but somehow that wasn't what was going to happen, and you could feel it. If there weren't two outs and two men on base, Ortiz wouldn't be standing in the on-deck circle.
Pedroia singles on a long hit to Hunter in right field, but Middlebrooks stops at third. It seemed like he could have made it, though it might have been close. The Tigers bring in Benoit to face Ortiz.
Bases loaded. David Ortiz strides to the plate. The first pitch. Ortiz tags it. Hunter chases it to the right field wall and flips over the wall into the Red Sox bullpen as the ball goes over his glove by a few inches. Pandemonium. Delirium. The loudest roar I've ever heard in Fenway Park.
I spent a summer working for the Red Sox. The same summer I met my ex-wife. I took my 15-year old son, Grayson, to see this game with me, courtesy of my fabulous clients, who offered me tickets to either this second game or the seventh game, next Sunday. There isn't going to be a seventh game.
The next twenty minutes of baseball was one long adrenalin rush. The energy kept growing and getting more intense. Papi came out for a curtain call. Hunter walked off the pain from flipping over the fence into the bullpen. Napoli pinch-hit for Mike Carp and struck out. It didn't matter. The Red Sox had the whole 9th inning to win this one.
The whole crowd was on its feet while Uehara, the amazing closing pitcher who, uncharacteristically, had lost Game 3 of the divisional series with the Rays when he allowed a solo home run, gunned down the Tigers in the top of the ninth with a pop-up, a strike out, and another pop-up.
The place was delirious. The clapping, the chants of "Let's go, Red Sox" in their descending minor third sing-song pattern (like "nah-nah, nah-nah" in the school yard), were relentless. A foul ball would stop the thunderous noise for a moment, then it would surge again, like a wave coming from all directions.
The Tigers brought in Porcello to pitch, and Jonny Gomes singled, and he advanced to second base on a bad throw from the shortstop. Tying run at second. With Saltalamacchia up, the crowd forces the Tiger pitcher. He throws a pitch in the dirt that scuttles by the catcher, and Gomes takes third. That's all we need. None out, man on third, Saltalamacchia at the plate. Everyone knows what's going to happen next, and it does. Salty grounds the next pitch sharply past the shortstop, into right field. Game over. Walk-off single.
I'm still hoarse.
Like many of the Red Sox players are doing this year. I've been growing a beard, in support of my team. I'll keep it at least until the Red Sox win the World Series this year.
Go Red Sox!
Comments (5)Subscribe to CommentsComment