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Rays Fans Witnessed Something Special

Tribune photo by MICHAEL SPOONEYBARGER

Fernando Perez, right, who scored the final run in the 11th inning for a Rays victory celebrates with teammates Carlos Pena, middle, as B.J. Upton who knocked in the winning run jumps for joy.

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By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 12, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - Hardly anyone among the 34,904 who had jammed Tropicana Field had left. They wouldn't have dared. The game had been so far beyond even the normal insanity of post-season baseball that everyone had to realize they were part of something special.

"From the time (Evan) Longoria hit the home run, I thought it was going to be one of those games – one of those crazy games," Rays designated hitter Cliff Floyd said.

And then you look at the scorebook.

My goodness. That home run happened in the first inning, but it took events that happened almost 5 1/2 hours later, in the 11th inning, to settle a game that – oh, surrender to the cliché – by now is an instant classic.

"It's the most amazing game I've ever been part of," Rays reliever Trever Miller said.

Shame on you if you started to watch but somehow fell away and couldn't go the distance, as the voice in the Iowa cornfield once intoned. If you couldn't last the 5 hours and 27 minutes it took to watch Fernando Perez do a madcap dash from third base and score the winning run on essentially a pop-up to right by B.J. Upton, well I hope you at least slept well.

The Rays beat Boston 9-8. The American League Championship Series is tied at a game apiece.

Imagine the loudest sound you've ever heard.

Now double it, and maybe you've got an idea of the explosion of sound from 34,904 inside Tropicana Field that greeted Perez's safe slide and victory.

It came at 1:35 a.m.

Good morning, indeed.

Waited For His Chance

Perez, extremely fast and on the roster for just a situation like this, had been waiting for his chance most of the night. He had been riding the exercise bike for more than an hour to get loose.

"Like Lance Armstrong," he said. "I had been walking around with a helmet on for about two hours."

Then Dioner Navarro walked off Sox reliever Mike Timlin to open the 11th. Bench coach Dave Martinez waved at Perez and said "It's time … no really, it is."

"I was hoping and thinking it would be about two hours earlier, but it didn't work out that way," Perez said, while everyone laughed. "It's kind of weird. You're always sizing up the situation, thinking that if somebody gets on base who isn't that fast – you're always looking for that situation."

We have to stop for a moment and give a brief recap how it got to this moment.

Whether the Rays go on and win this series or not, whether there is more magic dust in supply as this inconceivable season reaches its crescendo, there will always be Saturday night, then Sunday morning, all of it part of a game that wouldn't die

"I feel like I've aged 12 to 14 years," executive vice president Andrew Friedman said afterward, and that may be a conservative estimate.

This wasn't so much a game as it was a test of wills – and there was a lot of will.

Six lead changes.

Seven home runs (four by Boston).

The teams combined to use 14 pitchers. They threw 433 pitches.

There were individual standouts, such as Longoria (homer, two doubles, three runs scored) and the Red Sox's Dustin Pedroia (two homers, four runs scored). Upton had a monster of a home run. Lord, we could go on there but that's why they invented box scores. As Yogi says, you can look it up.

But this was also a raw game, a human game, complete with the frustrations humans can endure. Rays starter Scott Kazmir was, well, bad. Boston starter Josh Beckett was worse.

Rays reliever Dan Wheeler threw a pitch to the backstop in the eighth inning that allowed Boston's tying run to score, then turned in one of the guttiest outings you will ever see – a 48-pitch marathon that covered 3 1/3 innings. Wheeler, remember, is normally a 1-inning guy.

Every pitch seemed to reach inside you and twist a body into knots.

In other words, just what a game with these stakes is supposed to be.

"To come out on the winning end of that is enormous for us," Wheeler said. "And I hope it's just as enormous on the other side for [Boston]."

Good Luck Charm

As the night wound on and the Rays began to run through just about their entire roster, several pitchers who had already been used took matters to extremes in the clubhouse. They moved chairs around, traded places, anything that might double as a good luck charm.

"Guys were doing different things," reliever Grant Balfour said. "Crazy stuff. I threw some wristbands on. I threw some in my bag – I haven't used them all year – to take to Boston because that might be the trick."

"Hats backward. Shirts on, shirts off. You name it," Miller said.

Yeah, you name it.

Want to call it a gut check? Go ahead.

Want to call it a rite of passage for these young Rays? Sure, it was that too.

But mostly it was a game that if you saw this game, you'll never forget it.

"Both teams fought their hearts out," Floyd said, and that is true.

They also took two communities, and whatever portion of the country watched the game, along for the ride.

Games like this are an "all-in" for fans who have never been part of anything like this. You don't watch a game like this as much as you simply experience it.

So they did.

They'll talk about this one for a while – at least all the way to Monday, when the series resumes in Boston. Both these teams need a day off. After a game like that, I think we all do.

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