First of all, happy birthday, Brad Paisley! 53 years old today. And he celebrated a day early by performing the National Anthem before last night’s marathon World Series Game 3 at Dodger Stadium.
Which, as it turns out, was an omen in and of itself. Brad Paisley has performed the National Anthem at Dodger Stadium before a World Series games four (4) times. Here are the other three games:
- Game 2, 2017. The game goes 11 innings.
- Game 3, 2018. The game goes 18 inning and lasts 7 hours and 20 minutes. The longest game in World Series history by time.
- Game 1, 2024. The game goes 10 innings, ends with a Freddie Freeman walk-off home run.
And then last night. Another 18 inning odyssey that lasted 6 hours and 39 minutes. And the game had EVERYTHING:
We had early home runs from the Dodgers, we had go-ahead three run home runs from the Blue Jays, we had Shohei Ohtani* hitting his SECOND home run of the night in the bottom of the 7th inning, then we had guys getting thrown out at home with two outs, bases loaded jams escaped, guys thinking they hit a walk-off home run when it died a foot short on the warning track, and ultimately ANOTHER Freddie Freeman World Series Walkoff in the bottom of the 18th inning.
Honest to God it has a strong case for the greatest game of baseball ever played when you consider the stakes (World Series game with the series tied) and the huge moments. A few things in no particular order:
- You can’t have a ghost runner determine a game in a playoff game, let alone a World Series game. So going back to the old school extra innings rules in those games makes sense and should never be changed. But when you get used to that ghost runner during the regular season, you forget how LONG games can go without it. Games like last night used to happen a LOT in the regular season. Maybe not 18 innings and nearly 7 hours. But 12 innings, 13 innings, etc. were not uncommon. No reason for that on a random Wednesday in the middle of June.
- I don’t know how you recover from that as a Blue Jay player or fan. Baseball is a quirky sport, so there’s always a chance they come out and win tonight 9-2. But MAN. The emotional toll a game like that has to take can’t be underestimated. Felt like that might have been the Series last night.
- ^Related, if the Brewers ever lost a World Series game like that, I’d be a dead person (metaphorically). And if they went on to lose the series I don’t know if I’d ever recover. I’d just be mumbling to myself (weekday mornings, 6-10am on B93) in the corner like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. My friends and family would have to Shutter Island me to just try and shock my brain back into coherence. Just devastating.
Insane to think they’re playing again tonight and you’ve got to put that out of your brain and strap in for the biggest game of the series.
*I don’t think it’s being ‘prisoner of the moment’ or having ‘recency bias’ at this point: Shohei Ohtani is the greatest baseball player who has ever lived. Before him I would have said Willie Mays, when you consider the offensive exploits combined with him being one of the best centerfielders in MLB history. Certainly Babe Ruth is a part of the conversation, Ted Williams is the greatest hitter of all time, Barry Bonds is on the short list as well even with the PED’s. But it is beyond dispute at this point. We are living in an era where the best player to play the game is in the prime of his career.
PS: I learned very early on in my broadcasting career that nobody, and The Rock means, NOBODY, feels bad for people that work in TV or radio when they’re tired. This picture made me laugh though:
That’s the Fox 6 newsroom. They had their regular 10pm news broadcast coming up, “after the game.” So if you work on that news team, you’re probably thinking, “okay, game starts at 7:08, World Series game, we’re probably not going on until 10:15, 10:30 at the latest.” And then extra innings happen. And before you know if, it’s 2:00am and the morning show is already in and prepping for 4am. Crazy!
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