Total Game Time: 6 hours 53 minutes
Players Used: 46
At Bats: 158
Pitches: 652
Walks: 19
Strikes Outs: 35
Retarded Tony LaRussa Moves: At least 3.
The players found it exciting, the fans found it boring and Tony LaRussa found those pot brownies the Brendan Ryan was saving until after the game.
“That’s the fist time I’ve been part of something like that,” said first baseman Albert Pujols. “That was pretty special right there.”
“Obviously, it’s no fun to be on the losing end,” Ludwick said. “But when you look at it from a bystander’s standpoint it was an incredible baseball game. This is definitely going down in the memory book.”
Of the 43,709 who paid, only a fraction stayed to see outfielder-turned-third-baseman-turned reliever Joe Mather take the loss in a two-inning, 38-pitch appearance.
Frankly we would have probably enjoyed the 20-inning too if there weren’t so many problems with the game.
The hitting was amazingly bad. No one could hit anything. Hell even Felipe Lopez was mowing guys down. Come on guys. This thing was brutal to watch. It was like two retarded kids taking misaligned haymakers at each other with their eyes closed.
The managing was puzzling at best. Ok, maybe Holliday was sick as the skipper Tony LaRussa claims. Still though, the bases are loaded with two outs and you decide to let your relief pitcher take his at bat? A relief pitcher?! A guy that never hits?! …when you have a position player available? …twice!?!! Dude. We try to like you Tony, but good lord man.
The strike zone didn’t change to the game. Admittedly, this is a minor concern, but when you see two teams just pawing at each other like two sleepy kittens, maybe stop calling the mid-shin low strike. Maybe lay off the inside strike. Maybe make the pitchers throw something you can hit because these hitters needed all the help you can give them. Hell around inning 17 of a zero to zero game, you should have said screw the strike zone and just brought out the tees for the guys to get some offense going.
It made for an interesting night for some high schoolers. After all of that, there was still another game to be played. A high school ball game was scheduled after the Cardinals v Mets match. It should have started around 6pm. Instead it was more like 10:50pm and didn’t end until 1:20am.
It made for a sad night for younger kids. Even worse, it was supposed to be one of those “run the bases after the game” days. So much for that huh? There wasn’t a kid in the house that came for the game when it was all over, 7 hours later at 11pm. There were however 3 children born during the game in the stadium, and the Cardinals did allow them to run the bases.
via STLToday
[Editor’s Note: This post was a lot better until WordPress shat the bed and lost my whole post right before saving last night. Consider this post a tribute to that fallen, much better, one.]