If you don’t believe there’s magic in SEC baseball, you didn’t watch in person from the edge of your seat all 14 innings, 34 players, 19 hits, four errors, five great escapes, one inspired defensive shift and one successful replay review that made up the delicious gumbo of LSU 5, Florida 3 to close Day Two of the SEC Tournament, a game that started Wednesday night, ended Thursday morning and meant nothing in the big picture of a national championship chase but everything to the two teams that threw everything they had at each other and the thousands of fans who ignored early wake-up calls to take it all in.
Excuse the run-on sentence, but this was a run-on game.
By time, at 5 hours and 7 minutes, it was the longest game in SEC Tournament history. In terms of memories, it’s hard to find more instant classic moments between the first pitch and the last out of any college baseball game.
Two starting pitchers you’ll see in the majors one day, Florida’s A.J. Puk and LSU’s Alex Lange, veered between good and great but became an asterisk by the time things were decided.
Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan endeared himself to ump-baiting fans everywhere when he called for a review of a tough dropped fly ball near the line in the bottom of the ninth, and the original call was overturned. The ball was ruled fair, putting the tying run on second base and setting the stage for five innings of free baseball.
LSU coach Paul Mainieri earned the defensive shift award when he removed an outfielder and installed a fifth infielder in the bottom of the 11th when desperate times – bases loaded, nobody out – required a desperate measure.
Turned out, the unorthodox move was unnecessary when one Florida hitter popped out and the next hit a soft liner to the third baseman, who caught it for the second out and beat the runner to the bag with a dive to complete the inning-ending, game-extending double play.
In the end, after Florida failed to plate the winning run from scoring position in the 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th innings, after LSU pushed across two runs in the top of the 14th and the Gators failed to answer – but only after bringing the tying run to the plate – we learned a few things in the wee hours of a Hoover morning.
When you bring together two of the best programs in college baseball at the best college baseball event this side of Omaha, good things really do happen after midnight, LSU’s #rallypossum is not a myth and the Hoover Met is the baseball equivalent of Death Valley after dark.
In the most amazing performance of all, that leather-lunged “Geaux” … “Tigers” guy never lost his voice.
LSU meets regular-season champ Mississippi State in the final game Thursday so buckle up for more late-night mischief. If you go, and you really should, take a sleeping bag. This is SEC baseball. These guys don’t know how – or when – to quit.
