September Rush: The last night of 2011

There are few excuses for not acknowledging September 28, 2011 as the most exciting night of your life:

1. You don't like sports ( Which is completely unacceptable if you're a guy. I have a huge beef with you. Ladies: still unacceptable, but less beef. More like a side of beef.)
2. You don't like baseball (C'mon! Now you're just being dumb. Everybody likes baseball! Get on the bandwagon, jerk!)
3. At some point in your life you have found the cure for a disease. (I am fine with this night being second place for people like Marie Curie and Will Smith)
4. You have no pulse ( This is a bigger problem then just not liking baseball. I would get in touch with Marie and Will to see if they could cure that for you.)

Otherwise, you have no excuse.


This night has been called the greatest single night in regular season baseball history. You could consider it one of the greatest single nights in sports history. Tim Kurkjian of ESPN spoke to "Mike and Mike" and said how this can't happen in any other sport.

There's no clock. Four teams with playoff hopes on the line. One team vying for a franchise record. Four teams giving it their all regardless of their fates being predetermined. Two games in extra innings.7 innings in total. One out becomes the difference maker in two different games, one game only being one strike away.  Two walk-off wins. Two highly touted franchises collapse, and two rise to overtake them. Hours separate one teams win from their playoff hopes, while only minutes lie between a crushing loss and shattered dreams for another. Disappointment surges through the hometown of the fallen while rejoice and celebration echo down the avenues of the victors. October...here we come!

Woah. I just got chills. Anyone else? Right!?

You cannot have watched last nights games and not felt a bit of excitement as these battles were going on. First, Tampa is down 7-0 to the Yankees. Game over. But wait. The 8th inning comes around. Single. That's a good start but not 7 runs. Double. Hm, this could at least be a close game. Then the pitchers just start playing dodgeball. And the batters aren't dodging. A baseball purist might say that the Rays starting off their score streak pretty cheaply. They got on base fine but then a walk in, hit by pitch for a run, sac fly for a run. It doesn't matter though. They're on a drive. It's almost like they hustled them. Because with one swing of the bat, Tampa turned it on! Longoria two run shot! Next inning, Johnson! Solo homer! Then they wait a little. Add some suspense. Make the fans feel like idiots for leaving in the 5th inning. Then BOOM! Longoria sneaks one over the wall just shy of the foul pole in left field. The Tampa Bay Rays have secured the wild card.

And the only reason we know this for sure is because we watched the epic defeat of Boston after a walk off double at Camden Yards. We watched Boston take the lead playing their best small ball. We saw Baltimore answer back by going yard at their Yard to take the lead back. Then a misstep by Baltimore's Alfredo Simon to give the Sox a balked lead. Pedroia answers Baltimore's volley with a backhand of his own to take back their small lead. These are the Red Sox though. Even with just a small lead in the 5th, they should be fine, especially against the Orioles. But wait, these are the 2011 Red Sox. And it's still September. Uh oh. Bottom of the ninth: ground rule double. Its all tied up. Reimold on second. One strike to go. Andino doubles right past the glove of Carl Crawford (who left the Rays for the Sox, trying to get that ring). Reimold scores sliding. We saw the Orioles flood the field. We saw Boston completely downtrodden. We saw Terry Francona rush out of the dugout into the clubhouse to what the Rays were up to. Only minutes later, we know what he saw.

Over in the NL, the Braves suffered a similar defeat as the Red Sox. Contrary to the Sox game though, the Phillies pushed this one into extra innings. The Phils returned to their roots to play a little small ball to reign this one in, finally, in the the 13th. They completed the sweep of the Braves right after an 8 game lose streak they started after they clinched. The Cardinals watched from their clubhouse, having already rolled over the Astros.

This whole night was a reflection of how the season has been going for the teams.

• The Phillies haven't had a worry all year long until a short dip in wins. And they led a short streak to end off the season. 
• The Yankees had to deal with a laundry list of injuries to key members of their lineup, but were able to dominate the final months when it counted. 
• The Cardinals stayed consistent throughout the year, nothing spectacular but enough to catch the failing Braves. 
• The Braves themselves, rode the wave of success and failure through the whole season, unfortunately for them, ending on the right side. 
• The Rays were the talk of the town when news came down that Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon had been signed. They were touted as a dark horse playoff hopeful before the season opened and they quickly sank into obscurity and disappointment. 
• The Red Sox battled back and forth with the Yankees for their position, after many assumed the former would run away with the entire MLB. They lost that battle and, eventually, the war.
• The Orioles actually did a little better than some people thought they would. 
• And of course, the Astro's got shut out. Can't think of a much better game to represent their season.

The point is, these games reached across all boundaries. No matter what team you root for. No matter if you prefer baseball to other sports. No matter if you like sports at all. You could watch the games on the 28th of September and you got a feeling. If you hadn't watched a game all season, you understood the season. If you lost touch with baseball over the years, you remembered why you loved it in the first place. If you were never a fan, you gained a new affinity (or at least respect) for the beautiful game of baseball. And I don't use the word beautiful loosely. But these games were beautiful. The way they wove together in such a way that they began with bated breath and ended with such an exclamation point was beautiful.

People have talked about the idea of the wild card spot in general. If the spot had never been added in (as many purists would prefer) none of this would have happened. Any game after September 23rd (when Milwaukee, Arizona, and Texas clinched) would have been pointless. This night wouldn't have happened. Over at the other extreme, if we had a second wildcard spot for each division (as Bud Selig wants for the 2012 season) than none of this would have happened. Both the Angels (4 games back from Wild Card) and the Giants (3 games back) were too far away to make a run for a second spot. No matter what happened, all four vying teams would have made it in. This night would not have happened.

But that's a lot of "ifs". If there was another play off spot this would have happened. If there was fewer that would have happened. If the Astro's had any kind of a good team and 47 more wins they would have been the best team in baseball. We have no idea what would have happened under any other circumstances. Teams adapt and work towards their goal no matter what issues are placed before them. We only have this years circumstances to look through.

And this years circumstances presented us with the most beautiful, exciting, memorable night of baseball, sports and life that some of us will ever see. Take notes MLB post season. You have a lot to live up to.