What a night.

WHAT A NIGHT!

It’s 5:15am and I’ve just witnessed the greatest night of baseball in living memory.

I cannot put it any better than this: “Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.”

Those are the words of the great Red Smith writing of the “Shot Heard Around The World”, Bobby Thomson’s home run to win the National League pennant of 1951 after the Giants had come back from an improbable deficit to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Going into last night the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays were tied for the American League Wild Card lead, with the St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves similarly tied in the National League.

Boston played in Baltimore, Tampa Bay hosted the New York Yankees while St. Louis visited Houston and Atlanta welcomed Philadelphia. A win and a loss for either team and their respective league rival would have seen them advance to the playoffs, with any other scenario leading to a single-game tiebreaker playoff game on Thursday.

In Tampa, New York bounded out to an early lead going 5-0 up in the second inning. David Price, Rays starting pitcher, was having a nightmare on the mound and the Tampa Bay hitters, facing the dregs of the Yankees’ pitching staff, couldn’t hit a lick.

Meanwhile in Baltimore Boston took a third inning lead, only for the Orioles to score two runs in the bottom of the inning. The Red Sox scored runs in the 4th and 5th, carrying a 3-2 lead into the 7th inning. Then the rains came.

As the grounds crew dragged out the tarp in Camden Yards, the Yankees had pegged on another couple of runs to make it 7-0. At this stage the Rays had managed a mere two hits against those Yankee “pitchers”. The Rays fans started to leave the ballpark.

Over in the National League, Atlanta was holding a 3-1 lead over the Phillies after the third inning. This got important, quickly, as St. Louis, starting their game an hour later in Houston, jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first inning and never looked back. Houston starting pitcher Bret Myers, whose generosity was accepted by countless Cardinal hitters, will not be a welcome man in Atlanta for some time.

A recap on the state of play at this point:

– Boston are in the playoffs, cruising against Baltimore while the Rays are getting beaten up by the Yankees

– Atlanta and St. Louis, both winning, are playing a single-game tiebreaker on Thursday

Then things started to happen.

Philadelphia pulled a run back in the 8th inning to make it 3-2 to the Braves, then tied up the game in the ninth to send the game into extra innings.

St. Louis finish their game in Houston and head inside to watch the Atlanta game, safe in the knowledge that they’ve secured a place in a tiebreaker game at worst.

The Red Sox players are all sitting happily in the clubhouse feeling pretty much exactly like the Cardinals club – after all, there’s a rain delay along with a terrible forecast for the night and even if they have to back out there the Rays are getting tonked, right?

It was at about this point that the players trotted out in Tampa for the home part of the 8th inning. The Rays then proceeded to load the bases with zero outs, at which point the Yankees manager Joe Girardi brought in Luis Ayala to pitch.

Sam Fuld walks to force in a run. 7-1.

Sean Rodriguez was hit by a pitch. 7-2.

Desmond Jennings made an out; BJ Upton then hit a sacrifice fly to cut the lead to 7-3.

Enter Evan Longoria, star third baseman, who strode to the plate, stared down Ayala and smacked a three-run home run to left field.

The Trop went wild.

Twitter went wild.

The Rays’ announcers went wild.

And it sure has heck woke up those Red Sox players from their up-to-then satisfactory snoozing during their rain delay.

Over in the NL, Atlanta and Philadelphia remain tied through 10 innings.

Word comes through from Baltimore. The rainclouds and lightning has cleared; play will start in ten minutes.

The action from Tampa moves to the ninth inning. Yankee hitters go down in orderly fashion 1, 2, 3. The home side comes to bat knowing that they need a run to keep their season alive.

Ben Zobrist flies out to centre. One out.

Casey Kotchman grounds out to third base. Two outs.

Sam Fuld, journeyman and storybook hero many times over for the Rays during this incredible season, was taken out of the game for a pinch-hitter. Surely if miracles were to happen it would be Fuld, but not tonight. Instead the chosen figure was Dan Johnson, an unlikely looking slugger with pasty skin and reddish beard.

With the count at 2-2, a single strike left for the Rays entire season, Johnson clubbed a home run over the right field fence to tie the game at 7-7.

The Red Sox player came out of their dressing room, stunned.

Atlanta and Philadelphia remain tied through 11 innings. The Cardinals wait, and watch.

Boston get through the 7th inning, and the 8th, still leading 3-2.

Atlanta give up a run in the top of the 13th inning, Philadelphia lead 4-3.

New York and Tampa go through the 10th and 11th, still tied at 7 runs.

Almost simultaneously we enter the bottom of the ninth in Baltimore and the bottom of the 12th in Tampa.

Philadelphia holds on to beat the Braves in 13 innings. Atlanta are out, suffering one of the worst late-season collapses in baseball history. The Cardinals players spray beer and champagne in the Houston clubhouse as they win the NL Wild Card.

Boston brings on star closer Jonathan Papelbon to save the 3-2 game. The first two Baltimore batters, Adam Jones and Mark Reynolds, both strike out swinging. Next man up, Chris Davis, hits a double to right field. Baltimore manager Buck Showalter substitutes Davis for a pinch-runner, former college football wide receiver Kyle Hudson.

With a count of 2-2, Nolan Reimold hits a ground-rule double scoring Hudson. Both games are now tied.

The Boston pitching coach visits the mound. Robert Andino, a very ordinary middle infielder who’d been having a decent month or so, was up next. No problem Jonathan, you’ll blow your stuff right past him.

Not so much.

After seeing a slider and a fastball go by, Andino hit a single to left off a split-finger fastball… Nolan Reimold scores. The Red Sox players are visibly shellshocked.

Back to Tampa, literally minutes later. It’s the bottom of the 12th inning and, lest one forget, the Rays have already come back from a 7-0 deficit to tie the game with 2 outs and 2 strikes in the bottom of the 9th inning.

Scott Proctor is the Yankees pitcher, not a notable star but the man who was appointed to finish the game off. BJ Upton struck out swinging sending Longoria to the plate, he of the 8th inning bases-clearing blast which had restarted the fading heartbeat of the ball club.

2-2 pitch… fastball… Longoria hits it hard and low and it sneaks over the left field wall.

Tampa Bay win the Wild Card.

Boston go home, completing a collapse even worse than that suffered by the Braves.

What a night.

A great night, and the use of the word “great” is appropriate here. One of the greatest sporting nights it has been my privilege to witness, especially so given that it was past five in the morning here in Dublin by the time it had finished.

Baseball may have killed off fiction in 1951 but in 2011 it did a little jig on its grave.

What a night.

 

(Note: updated 09:29 to reflect Longoria’s 3-run shot rather than, as I had originally written, a grand slam)