The Greatest Game...

So I just got done reading The Machine, a great book by Joe Posnanski about the 1975 Cincinnati Reds. There was one part of it that made me have a flashback. It was talking about Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. That game lasted 12 innings and didn’t end until after mid-night. That alone didn’t cause the flashback. What did it was when the book talked about Pete Rose going around during the game saying this was the greatest game ever. He didn’t want to be any other place at that time.

That took me back to what anyone who writes on the blog will tell you was the greatest baseball night ever on James Island. Ok, cases can be made for other games. There have been some great games played at James Island High School. I’ve been lucky enough to see (and even play) in most of them. But this one was special. For one thing, it wasn’t just one game. It was a double header. Going into it, we didn’t know it was going to be a double header, but that’s what it ended up being. You see, this was May 1996 and we were playing Fort Dorchester in the AAA playoffs. This was the District Championship game. We only needed to win once, Fort needed to win twice. Game one was a good game that didn’t go our way when their guy hit a homerun in the 7th inning to go up 5-4 and our second baseman stuck out with bases loaded to end the game.

Then came Game 2. Fort won a coin toss making them the home team. The game started… and for a while I thought it might never end. It was great. I loved every minute of it. I kept thinking, how cool would it be if we were still playing when school started (oh yeah, it was a school night)? I can remember a foul ball almost killed Carl Moore when it hit a spot in the dugout about 1 foot away from where he had fallen asleep. I can remember as the game went into extra innings seeing Mr. Belk, who usually looked so calm and sharp, walking around with his shirt un-tucked and a frazzled/sick look on his face after his son made an error that let Fort Dorchester tie the game and put the winning run on third base with only one out. I remember Adam Mims playing catcher (maybe for the first time ever) and having a bang-bang play at the plate where Adam had to tag the runner out (which he did). It felt like there were about 20 or 30 different times when our backs were against the wall and it looked like our season was going to end. Each time something would happen and we would get out of it. Game 2 ended up lasting 12 innings (and didn’t end until 2:15am). We ended up winning 24-14. I remember scoring the 15th and the 24th runs… Fort just ran out of pitching. I’m not 100% sure, but I think all of our runs in the 12th inning came from walks. So it was sloppy… but man it was fun. So if you are scoring at home… Game 1 started at 6pm and lasted 7 innings and Game 2 went 12 innings and didn’t end until 2:15am. So, while an argument can be made about it being the greatest game there is no doubt in my mind that it was the longest night in James Island baseball. And I’d love to do it just one more time…