Major League Baseball is 149 years old and, ladies and gentlemen, I submit that Saturday night's Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Bluejays was the greatest game of all time. I can't prove that, I haven't been around that long. But I don't see how it's possible there was a better one. The game was so great that for the final six innings, my wife and I sat on the couch together and watched. Sitting on the couch together and watching is not new, but watching baseball: that's new. Will probably never be repeated.
Now, are there challengers for this greatest game claim? Of course there are. But I'm considering only World Series games, when the stakes are the highest.
Alright, 1956, Yankee Stadium: Yanks vs. Dodgers. Yankees pitcher Don Larsen throws what remains the only perfect game in World Series history. But it happened in a Game 5, and quite frankly, despite the enormity of Larsen's milestone, the game wasn't that interesting.
1975, World Series, Red Sox vs. Cincinnati Reds: Fenway Park. Boston catcher Carlton Fisk stands at home plate, waving, begging, praying that his 12th inning shot to left would stay fair. It does, careening off the left field foul pole, giving the Red Sox the win. But that was Game 6. Cincinnati's Big Red Machine won Game 7 of the series.
Phillies fans might not want to hear this one, but 1993, 9th inning, Game 7 in Toronto, Joe Carter rips a pitch from Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams over the left field wall to give the Bluejays their second straight World Series win. It was the first walk-off World Series-winning run in 23 years.
Which brings us to the final candidate; 1960, Forbes Field: Pirates vs. Yankees. In the bottom of the 9th, Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski hits the second pitch from Ralph Terry over the vined left field wall to give the Pirates a 10-9 win, in a series in which they were outscored 55 runs to 27. I listened to the game on a transistor radio that I kept hidden from Ms. Leepy in my fifth grade classroom. Yes, games were played in the afternoon back then.
But those walk-offs not withstanding, I'll stick with Saturday night's game as the best. There was, of course, the home run by Miguel Rojas in the 9th inning; the one player who is, to an extent, anonymous in the sea of Dodgers superstars. Almost as unlikely was the throw Rojas made to home when he was so off balance, he looked like he was going to fall down.
Then came the most remarkable defensive play I've ever seen. Center fielder Andy Pages, who had been inserted for defensive reasons at the beginning of the inning, ran over 100 feet, colliding with left fielder Enrique Hernandez, and nearly with the wall, to run down a long fly ball. Minutes before he went in, he was sitting alone in the dugout with a hoodie over his head. It was almost like he was woken up when he was told to go into the game.
There was still the winning home run from Will Smith, and in an amazing night that speaks to the singularity of this game's unpredictable greatness, the son of the guy who caught Rojas' home run caught the Smith home run. There was a game-ending double play, the performance from pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and a dozen other things that added up to this game being unprecedented.
Yeah, I know it could've been better for many around here — the Phillies could've been playing.
