Every pro sport gets better in the playoffs — but baseball is transformed.
For 10 days — with comebacks, tape-measure home runs, leg-breaking slides, bench-clearing feuds, smart unorthodox managing and scads of rookie stars — the first wave of MLB’s postseason has been cresting.
This week, it hit shore with a glorious crash.
On Tuesday, generations of fans contorted their faces in glee as the Cubs won a postseason series for the first time in the 101-year history of Wrigley Field.
Then came Thursday in Toronto. America’s fans screamed, smacked their heads, laughed and then finally took a step back in respect; many said the Blue Jays’ 6-3 win in Game 5 over Texas was the most emotionally intense sports event they’d ever seen.
The Rangers took a 3-2 lead when a runner scored from third because the Jays catcher carelessly tossed the ball back toward the mound but hit the batter in the hand with the throw instead. That has been a “live ball” since John McGraw. Run counts.
In the bottom half of the inning, Texas made three errors in a row. Then a blooper fell that should’ve been caught. Give a team seven outs, somebody will hit a three-run bomb. Jose Bautista did.
In July, you say, “Cool game” and go home. In October, you save the scorecard for your casket.
That inning took 53 minutes, every one riveting. Civil Canadians bombarded the field with a million Labatt cans, eh — first in anger at the Texas run, then in joy. Benches cleared twice. The umps had five conferences. And Bautista flipped his bat. Into the 500 Level.
What’s the difference between July and October? Tension, mounting tension over a long time, then ecstatic release.
Every sport pushes these buttons. But playoff baseball taps into them the best. The Super Bowl takes four hours, most of it commercials and music Don Shula remembers. The Rangers-Jays series took five games and seven days, with barely any emotional pause between games: That’s 168 hours of anticipation.
In other sports, you score one goal or basket at a time. A big lead takes time to disappear. In MLB, it just vaporizes.
Tuesday, the Cards had a 2-0 lead and a 68 percent chance to win; the Cubs manager let his pitcher hit for himself with two on, two out. He singled. Next pitch, three-run homer. Cubs: 73 percent chance to win. That was the second inning! Wait for the fourth quarter? Not baseball. You’re never safe.
Every series also has a nerve-shredding narrative. The Rangers led by two games. That put Jays fans on a five-day high wire, staring down at elimination. Batista’s homer turned all those days of “We’re probably dead” into “WE JUST KILLED ’EM.”
On Monday night in Houston, the young Astros got back-to-back homers from Carlos Correa, 21, and Colby Rasmus to eliminate the defending AL champion Royals, 6-2 — or so the governor of Texas thought. He tweeted his (premature) congratulations to the Astros.
As that tweet appeared, the Royals’ odds of winning that game, much less the whole series, dropped to 2 percent. Then the Kansas City eighth inning began with a single (odds of winning now 6 percent), a single (10), a single (18), a single (30) and another single (45) — five in a row, most with seeing eyes.
The Astros didn’t need math degrees from MIT to sense those changing odds tightening like a noose. That’s why, as the next Royal chopped a grounder up the middle, the Astros pitcher and shortstop barely touched what should’ve been a double play. As the ball escaped to center field, two runs scored. Those 2 percent odds of a win? Now 75 percent.
Call the governor all you want, but that execution wasn’t going to get stayed.
Baseball turns the screws more slowly within one game, yet transforms games with “big innings” more suddenly. Then it rushes another crisis in your face the next day.
Starting this weekend, two pennants will be at stake in seven-game series, possibly over nine days — more time for more tension.
How long can baseball make you wait? At the corner of Addison and Clark streets in Chicago, there’s a homely old park, made beautiful by ivy, brick and memories. It has waited 101 years, in vain. So long as the Cubs are still playing, think of Wrigley Field as the symbol of a whole sport that both loves and despises these long waits and deferred gratification.
And think of just how that wait might end.
©2015, The Washington Post
