Was that the greatest baseball game ever played?
Maybe there’s some computer algorithm fueled by newfangled metrics that can give us a definitive answer on where Astros 7, Dodgers 6, Oct. 25, 2017 (WS) ranks.
If so, it will probably show that some regular-season encounter between two cellar-dwelling teams in August 1937 that no one alive remembers is clearly No. 1. (But I’d better be careful … 102-year-old actor, Norman Lloyd, who watched Babe Ruth play in the World Series in 1926 and was at Chavez Ravine on Tuesday, might recall what really happened in baseball back then.)
Considering what was on the line, however, Game 2 of the World Series with the winner tying it up is right up there at the top.
A crowded top.
Of course, for most, it matters what you like and who you like.
If you enjoy plenty of home runs and are an Astros fan … well, there you go.
Then there’s the whole prisoner-of-the-moment thing. It seems like the latest is always described as the greatest these days. What about Game 7 last year, when the Cubs beat Cleveland 8-7 in 10 innings and finally reversed the curse?
In 1975, pretty much all I cared about was if the Boston Red Sox won or lost. So it was one of the happiest events of my 14-year life when they made it to the World Series (I was a little too young to appreciate the “Impossible Dream” season of 1967).
That means I should agree with the experts who say Game 6 of the ’75 Series is the greatest game ever, right? It was spectacular and dramatic, and the Red Sox were on the brink of elimination.
I will say the entire series against the Reds — with five of its seven games, including the two elimination games, decided by one run — might be the greatest ever.
Carlton Fisk’s 12th-inning, game-winning homer is what most people remember about Game 6. But that wouldn’t have happened if not for pinch hitter Bernie Carbo’s three-run shot to tie it at 6-all in the eighth inning.
In 2010, Carbo told the Boston Globe that he was blasted when he hit the crucial blast — as he was most of the season, and much of his career.
“I probably smoked two joints, drank about three or four beers, got to the ballpark, took some (amphetamines), took a pain pill, drank a cup of coffee, chewed some tobacco, had a cigarette, and got up to the plate and hit,’’ said Carbo, who eventually stopped using drugs and alcohol.
Regardless of the state of mind of any of its key figures, it was indeed a tremendous game. But greatest ever?
What I do know is I saw a candidate for worst game ever two months ago at the same site, Fenway Park. The Red Sox played against the Orioles that night like they’d found a long-lost trunk full of Carbo’s ingestibles in the clubhouse and lost 16-3. They made five errors, and Baltimore wasn’t much better in the field with three.
Rick Porcello, the reigning American League Cy Young winner, was horrendous on the mound. But just four of the 11 runs he was charged with were earned.
If I weren’t with two friends who were at Fenway for the first time, I would’ve left early. As it turned out, staying to the end made for a faster exit.
Seeing guys who get paid millions of dollars butcher the game like that tests my patience for the sport that requires patience of its followers, especially when tickets, parking and ballpark food are not cheap.
But, I’ll take it as an interesting experience, getting to watch professionals botch plays that my mixed league slow-pitch teammates make with ease. It’s easy to forget even superstar ballplayers are human beings.
For a long time now, I’ve had a love-wait relationship with my favorite sport.
Baseball and I will be sailing along just fine. Then something like Bucky Dent, a players strike, a steroid era, or an eight-error game happens.
And then I wait, for the next thing that reminds me why I love baseball.
The most recent next thing happened Tuesday night.
Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529- 4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads Opens in a new tab.
