Thank God this weekend marked the RPI fall break. Everyone around campus needed the extra day to catch up on sleep or work, go home for some relaxation time with the family, go visit friends at other campuses afar, or—if you’re a sports nut like me—spend six hours watching the greatest, longest postseason game in baseball history, which didn’t involve the Yankees or Red Sox—who are both out of the playoffs, I might add.
October 9 will be marked as the day the Houston Astros closed out the Atlanta Braves in five games—I mean, four—after an 18-inning, five-hour-and-50-minute marathon that eventually concluded the National League Division Series. Houston took the win 7-6, extending their season and officially ending the Braves’.
As an Astros fan, I watched this game with intense emotion and celebrated in similar fashion after the unknown Chris Burke—unknown to even some Astros fans—sent a 336 foot blast just over the short porch at Minute Maid Park in Houston.
And while the fanatic side of me itched to rejoice with champagne like my beloved ‘Stros, the more objective, sportswriter side of me rejoiced for another reason; I was finally realizing what I had seen.
Sure, I had seen my team survive a grueling contest which continued its quest for the first World Series appearance and championship in Houston’s 46 years as a franchise, but more importantly, I witnessed baseball at its best and purest form.
The players on the field no longer looked like multi-million dollar athletes—and many of them weren’t, as both managers used their entire benches through the course of the game. The players displayed a passion and determination that is often missing from professional sports.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this contest was the fact that almost every player had their chance to make history. The Astros used 23 of 25 players, saving only Andy Pettite, who was scheduled to start a possible game 5 in Atlanta, and game 3 starter Roy Oswalt. The Braves, meanwhile, diminished their entire bullpen, and had only backup catcher Johnny Estrada remaining on the bench at the time of Burke’s blast off reliever Joey Devine.
The game demonstrated why the National League is superior to the American variety. The strategy and juggling Astros manager Phil Garner and Braves skipper Bobby Cox were forced to implement was incredible. It tested the abilities of the managers as they desperately shuffled players and sought to find the right combination.
For example, in an American League game, you will never see future Hall-Of-Famer Roger Clemens called in to pinch-hit.
The heroics in the game were not limited to either Burke or Clemens, who earned the win with three flawless frames in the 16th, 17th, and 18th innings, completing just the second relief appearance of his career. No, there were other heroes for both teams. The Braves received a phenomenal performance from starting pitcher Tim Hudson on three days’ rest and a grand slam from youngster Adam LaRoche. The Astros, however, had a few more stars on Sunday. Lance Berkman’s grand slam in the eighth closed the gap to 6-5 and then Brad Ausmus, who only hit three home runs all year, hit a solo shot to left center with two outs in the bottom of ninth that cleared the fence by mere inches, knotting the game at 6.
The Astros’ bullpen also pushed itself to the limits, as closer Brad Lidge and relievers Dan Wheeler and Chad Qualls threw 50-plus pitches apiece over two or three innings of work.
The Astros liberated a city with the win, as they erased the painful memory of the team’s 16-inning loss to the 1986 Mets and countless playoff failures at the hands of the Braves in the late ’90s and early 21st century.
The only downside to this contest was that it ended. Someone had to lose, though neither deserved it. And while I found myself asking, “will this game ever end?,” when it finally did all I wanted was for the show to go on.
