In the words of Harry Caray, holy cow! (Okay, that would be more appropriate if I had seen a Cubs game today, but whatever.)
This weekend I traveled down to Philadelphia to see Maggie, who is a twin, and the Minnesota Twins. It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve gone to a game with a baseball fan who was actively rooting for a different team than I was. Luckily, we are good enough friends that we avoided getting into any fights despite being surrounded by Twins fans. (As an aside, I have seen a lot more Twins fans at away games this year than I ever have in previous seasons.) In fact, when the Twins were down 9-4 at the beginning of the 9th inning with Delmon Young, Danny Valencia, and Nick Punto due up, I turned to her and said that it would probably be a quick and painless ending.
I really should not say things like that when it comes to baseball!
After Young singled, Gardenhire pinch hit former Philly Jim Thome — and the crowd was glad to see him again. They didn’t even seem to mind too much when he launched the ball deep to right for a two run homer — after all the Phillies were still up by three runs. But then Punto walked, stole second, went to third on a wild pitch, and finally scored on a Denard Span single. Now it was a two run game with only one out and the Phillies fans were feeling a little less comfortable.
After Span stole second and Orlando Hudson struck out for the second out, Joe Mauer came to the plate. The Iowans in front of us and I were going crazy. Maggie thought she heard a choke coming, but unless “choke” is Philadelphia slang for two-run game-tying homerun, she was mistaken. I very loudly yelled “Marry Me Joe,” and a guy in a Johan Santana jersey about 10 rows in front of us turned around and gave me a thumbs up.
Morneau flew out to left and the inning ended, but not the game, which was pretty much all I cared about. Philadelphia went down quickly in the bottom of the 9th and with the pitcher due up, Gardenhire pinch hit Drew Butera to start the 10th — Drew Freaking Butera. “Okay, Maggie,” I said, “You can have this first out.”
I have got to stop being so negative.
Drew Freaking Butera hit a homerun to deep left… and I just sat there laughing at the absurdity. Then I high-fived some Iowans and some people from St. Paul. Maggie glowered, as did the Philly fans to our left, who apparently were at their 5th game of the year and hadn’t yet seen a win.
At that point, I figured the game would end 10-9 with a Drew Butera winning homerun, but the Phillies had other plans. They had their own no-name pinch hitter, Ross Gload, jack one to right to tie the game again.
To the 11th we went — my scorebook doesn’t have an eleventh column, so I had to be creative and use the extra batter’s row to record the inning. Mauer and Morneau walked to start things off and then pitcher Jon Rauch laid down an awkward looking bunt that did it’s job as a sacrifice. This set up Delmon Young for an RBI single to put the Twins up 11-10. Just to get a bit more insurance, Matt Tolbert hit a double that scored Morneau and Young, but he tried to turn it into a triple with no success. All of us Twins fans pretty much simultaneously cheered “Who cares?!” because our boys were up 13-10 after being down 5 in the 9th.
Rauch put his actual skills to work in the bottom of the 11th, mowing down the Phillies to win the game.
Holy cow!