MIKE BURKE

Allegany Communications Sports

In the unfortunate ESPN vernacular that is, it was called an instant classic, and it was if you consider 15 gut-wrenching innings, 15 pitchers, 4 hours and 58 minutes of anxiety and 472 high-stress pitches to be instant.

The decisive moment came on a 3-2 pitch with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the 15th when Tommy Kahnle threw a changeup at the knees and Jorge Polanco roped it to right field to send the Seattle Mariners to the American League Championship Series with a 3-2 win over the Detroit Tigers.

All day Saturday, you heard baseball fans saying they had stayed up through the early morning to watch a “playoff classic,” while I felt I had stayed up through the early morning to watch two teams that couldn’t hit.

But ain’t analytics wonderful? Doesn’t make sense, does it?

Don’t misunderstand, the drama and the tension made for great baseball theatre, particularly since I didn’t have a dog in the hunt or, frankly, anything better to do. Without question, though, it was a game of true grit.

What I loved the most about it, though, was that somewhere the tiny little brain of Commissioner Rob Manfred must have been exploding because baseball was being played as it was intended to be played and baseball fans everywhere were loving it.

In case you didn’t notice, there was no runner placed on second base to start each half of each extra inning, because Major League Baseball decided this was one of their softball rules that shouldn’t help determine games in the postseason, which begs the question, why do it in the regular season that determines the postseason?

Honestly, I’ve gotten used to the rule during the regular season and understand that it takes its own interesting strategies that otherwise wouldn’t exist, and it saves pitching staffs from blowing out during the 162-game grind.

Let’s just say, I’m not bad with it, but if something’s not good enough to use in the postseason, why be so hypocritical to use it all? For instance, you don’t believe the Toronto Blue Jays, who hosted Game 1 of the ALCS last night, absolutely loved the Mariners having to use eight pitchers one calendar day before traveling across the continent and into another country to open baseball’s semifinal series?

Impossible to say, but it’s a good chance they wouldn’t have had to use that many pitchers with the runner on second to start each extra inning.

But games like the one that started Friday night and ended Saturday morning in the East are games baseball needs, because it helped to lead fans, who might have otherwise been watching college football on Saturday, to instead watch Game 5 of the National League Division Series that the Milwaukee Brewers won over the Chicago Cubs to advance to the NLCS. And, in turn, they are likely to keep watching baseball through this week and into the World Series.

Just when baseball needs it, a game like that one comes along, much like Game 6 of the 1975 World Series came along to help trigger the boom in popularity for the game through the 1980s, which included one of history’s most iconic games, Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.

Then, when baseball really needed a boon, along came Cal Ripken Jr. and 2131 after the owners had cancelled the 1994 World Series with their lockout, and that was followed by the McGwire-Sosa home run battle that kept the interest high and strong.

As former team owner Bill Veeck is attributed to have said, “Baseball must be a great game, because the owners haven’t been able to kill it.”

Buck O’Neal said, “We’ve done a lot of things to try to hurt it, but I don’t care, you just can’t kill it. You can’t kill baseball.”

Baseball is resilient and has been since the mid-19th century. The game always finds a way to thrive, regardless of the challenges. From Babe Ruth and Josh Gibson following the Black Sox to Bo Jackson and to Shohei Ohtani, new talent, thrilling moments and high drama continue to emerge.

The game endures and its spirit cannot be extinguished, and its history lives long and strong to only enrich its present.

It grabs your fancy when you least expect it to. Baseball is forever.

Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X @MikeBurkeMDT