#40. The Wild Card Game (Tuesday, October 4, 2016)
What was your best day…of being incredibly nervous, followed by a single moment of release?
Back in 2012, when Major League Baseball instituted the Wild Card Game – a one-game winner-take-all between the two best non-division winners in each League, for the right to go to the real playoffs – I was already extremely nervous. Because, although the Toronto Blue Jays hadn’t been relevant in almost two decades; I knew that if they ever found themselves in that do-or-die position down the road, my heart might not have been able to take it.
Fast forward four years. And on this Tuesday night in early October, here they were, following a roller coaster end to the 2016 regular season.1
In short. The Jays had a decent lead in the AL East at the start of September. They then went on a losing streak and played mediocre after that; going into the last weekend of the season, they had long lost their division lead to the Red Sox, and were fighting for their life for a wild-card spot. They pulled it off with two wins at Fenway Park over the weekend to close the season (an awesome two days), and even got home-field advantage for their wild-card game against the Baltimore Orioles.
So it’s the night of the game. I stick around the office for a few hours, while debating how late I should stay to watch since my director and I (and my research colleague, Neerad) have an important early-morning call with some people at the UK Debt Management Office (in London) to plan next month’s debt modelling conference. Then I head over to MacLaren’s: this downtown pool bar with big-screens lining the wall and my go-to spot for big games.
The game is tense. The Blue Jays and the Orioles trade runs early and it’s tied at two after five innings, and it stays that way into extra innings.
Every top of the inning, I hold my breath praying that an Orioles player doesn’t get on base (because I have a bad feeling he’ll score for sure), and after it ends I exhale deeply and cheer on the bottom of the inning a bit more calmly. As the 11th inning rolls around, my teeth are chattering uncontrollably.
A whole 162-game season and all its highs and lows, all coming down to this moment. I can’t even visualize how big the stakes are right now.
Bottom of the 11th. Brandon Duensing gets the first Jays batter out. Then the Orioles manager Buck Showalter inexplicably pulls him (while Zack Britton, #4 in Cy Young voting that year, sits in the bullpen). Ubaldo Jimenez comes in. Two quick hits by the Jays. So runners on the corners, one out, Jays are in excellent position now. Just don’t screw it up…
Before I can finish that thought, Edwin Encarnacion launches the first pitch from Jimenez into the center-field seats.
It’s over. I make the loudest sigh of relief that I’ve ever made. After all the drama of the past month, the Jays are going to the Division Series. To face off against none other than the Texas Rangers.
(N.B. The call with the UK DMO the next day went just about as well as it could have.)
- Differing from the interrupted stretch of bliss that was the latter part of 2015, #85.