DENVER – I witnessed a Major League record the other night.
Well, sort of.
The Colorado Rockies were hosting the Chicago Cubs: two teams apparently going nowhere, but the Rox have a lovely ballpark and my son and I are here visiting family so a game seemed like a good activity.
I liked our seats: high up, but along the first base line, which afforded a view of sunset on the Rockies – the mountain range, mind you, not the team.
Not to bore you with baseball details, especially if you’re not a fan, but the game began crisply, with Rockies pitcher Jeff Francis junk-balling the Cubbies to death with the aid of four sparkling, even Web Gem-worthy plays in the field (for the uninitiated, Web Gems are what ESPN calls the sparkling defensive plays of the day).
Meanwhile, the Colorado evening sky was doing its usual spectacular thing, turning various shades of purple and black – the home team’s colors, as it happens.
The Rockies led 5-2 when they came to bat in the bottom of the eighth inning. Here’s how that half inning unfolded: The first two guys got on base. The next two guys made outs: two on, two outs.
Then: single, double, double, triple, home run, single, double, home run, single, single, double, walk, walk, out. The totals for the inning: 13 hits, including 11 in a row – the most ever – and 12 runs. Score at the end of 8: Rockies 17, Cubbies 2.
Fun times at the old ballpark, right (except, of course, for the many Cubs fans in attendance)? Not as compelling as a see-saw battle or a dramatic comeback, but if you’re a Rockies fan, like my relatives, or a neutral party, like my son and me, you had to be vastly entertained by the sheer magnitude of the hit parade.
Except, we left early.
To be precise, we left after single, double, double, with the score now 9-2. It wasn’t my idea. My thinking generally is, since I only go to about one Major League game per year, and since a Web Gem is as likely to happen at the end of a blowout as in the middle of a nail-biter, I might as well stay ‘til the bitter end.
Plus, there’s Michael’s story. Michael is my pal from the old neighborhood in New York. His story goes like this: He and his partner are in Kansas City on business. They go to a Royals game. They leave late in the game with the Royals trailing 9-0. As their cab pulls up to their hotel, they see the doorman jumping up and down, fists pumping like he’s playing maracas, and his whole face crinkled in the widest possible smile. You can guess why: Royals score 10 in the 9th and win 10-9.
Michael vowed never to leave early again. After hearing his story, I did the same.
I’m sure, if my son and I were at the game by ourselves, we would have stuck it out. But with four runs in, my relatives began talking about leaving. I don’t blame them, especially my nephew and his wife. They had left their 1-year-old for the evening and were probably eager to retrieve her. You know how new parents are.
Plus, my brother-in-law assured me that if Ethan and I wanted to stay, they’d be glad to stay. But the dominant vibe was, this game’s over, let’s blow this joint and beat the rush. As the guest I didn’t want to make everyone linger for my sake.
So up we got. We heard a cheer as soon as the field disappeared from view: the triple. We heard another cheer just before we exited the ballpark: the homer. En route to the parking garage, we could see a TV in a bar and did double-takes when we saw that the score had ballooned to 17-2. We had missed eight hits and eight runs. When we turned on the car radio we learned that the 11 consecutive hits in an inning were a record.
I didn’t mind, really. If the Rockies had come back from a huge deficit, as the Royals did in Michael’s story, it would have been a different story.
Instead I mostly thought about Lou Piniella, the Cubs’ manager. Piniella is famous for epic tantrums that have included throwing and kicking his cap and ripping bases from their moorings and heaving them into the outfield. He has already announced that this season will be his last. Judging from his body language in the dugout last Friday night, he is now beyond tantrums. His team exudes apathy and he seems to have decided that if they don’t care, he doesn’t care either. I felt sorrier for Sweet Lou than I did for me.
That said, I hereby renew my vow never to leave a baseball game until the final out is safely in a fielder’s glove. Unless I’m cold and wet.
