#7. The Bat Flip (Wednesday, October 14, 2015)
What was your best day…of almost dying from excitement?
If you’re a person who has followed baseball to any measurable degree in the last several years, you know exactly what happened on this day.
It was the deciding Game 5 of the American League Division Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Texas Rangers. After falling behind 0-2 at home and seeing the magical last two months of the regular season about to go feebly down the drain, the Jays fought back with two convincing wins in Texas, to bring it back home for a winner-take-all.
Just one step away from completing a miraculous comeback. From moving that much closer to the World Series title that this Blue Jays team just felt destined to win. Through my eighteen years of being a hard-core Jays fan, this was the unbelievably-high-stakes game I had been dreaming of. But had never even been close to experiencing. Until this Wednesday.
No matter what, it would be a defining moment of my life.
The game had started at four, and I made it to my big-game spot (#40, #34) MacLaren’s1 for the start of the third inning.
The place, just like every other bar in that downtown area, was packed full, with the game playing on the ten big screens along the wall and above the bar, and a giant mass of people in Jays jerseys just staring straight forward. The surrealness of all this – a do-or-die playoff game featuring my die-hard team, with the entire country and the rest of the baseball world watching – hits me particularly hard the moment I walk into the bar.
You all know what happened. The Jays got down 2-0 early, and that feeling of inevitable doom – that I had gotten so used to after all those years – immediately came back.
But then they fought back to tie the game at 2 for the start of the seventh – thanks to an Edwin Encarnacion monster home run that made the place go ballistic.
And then came the seventh inning.
It was the top of the inning, with the Rangers at bat. There were two outs, a runner at third that I had a good feeling wasn’t going to score, I was in the middle of devouring my two plates of wings, when it happened. Despite being intently focused on the screen, I don’t recall actually seeing the whole thing – Russell Martin’s errant throw hitting Shin-Soo Choo’s bat and rolling weakly onto the field and Rougned Odor dashing home to score – as it happened. I just recall that in one flash the score suddenly said 3-2 and I had no fucking idea why.
The announcers’ explanation was being drowned out by the noise of the (equally-confused) crowd at the bar, so as I saw John Gibbons and Jeff Bannister and the home plate umpire argue and some player in the Jays dugout get ejected and the grounds crew picking up trash and beer bottles that the incensed fans in Rogers Centre were throwing onto the field, all I could think (and say, while tossing my barbecue-stained napkin at the plate repeatedly) was: “Fucking bullshit!” That was the worst fucking call in the history of baseball, and nothing was going to make me think otherwise.
So it’s now 3-2 Rangers, and I feel like this has to be the dagger for the Jays. There’s no way they could mount another comeback, could they? Any other year I would’ve said no way; but everything I had seen from these 2015 Toronto Blue Jays in the past two-and-a-half months tells me that this thing can’t be over yet.
The bottom of inning starts. I’m acutely aware of the meager nine outs the Jays have left to make something happen. Then, what follows is a rapid blur of time whose three parts I can’t even recall distinctly…
- Elvis Andrus mishandles a Russell Martin grounder to put him on first.
- Elvis Andrus makes another error, dropping a (poor) throw from Odor, and it’s now runners on first and second.
- Adrian Beltre drops the ball on a force attempt to third, and everybody is safe.
It’s suddenly bases loaded with no outs, but I have not yet grasped just how dramatically things have just turned.
Ben Revere hits into the first out, a force out at home, and I get even more nervous now (especially because it almost gets called a double play from runner’s interference2). If they blow this opportunity, that has to be it for them.
Then, to my immense relief, Donaldson hits a little looper that barely escapes Odor’s glove, and scores the tying run (coming with an out).
At this point I’m honestly satisfied: the Jays have tied the game while at home; they’re back in the driver’s seat; even if they don’t score here, they just need to push one more run across…
Before I get to finish that thought, in a sudden flash I see Jose Bautista take a swing, and the ball fly deep into the center field seats; then see him casually chuck his piece of lumber to the side – in the greatest bat flip in the history of baseball ever.
What I feel isn’t relief, happiness, joy, ecstasy, none of that. All I feel is myself shaking uncontrollably as half my body becomes numb. It’s like, mentally I’m aware of what’s just taken place, but emotionally I just can’t process it at all – because it’s gone too many levels beyond any feasible range of excitement I could have expected from any sporting event ever.
And for the rest of the game, as I watch the Jays wrap up the victory that will send them to the American League Championship series, I feel nothing else but that total and complete numbness.