MLB

I Have No Voice, And I Must Scream: The “Most Exciting Night In Baseball History” Firsthand

HBP, walk, HBP, sac fly, and Evan Longoria. It is terrible pitching, and it is the Yankees, and it takes 20 minutes but I swear you it happens before you can say the alphabet backward. 7-6, and everybody in the park — including the Yankee fans surrounding us — knows Johnny Damon will give the Rays a lead.

Damon pops out. To the 9th. Beer sales end. The Braves and Phillies are in extra innings. Nobody notices. The scoreboard highlighting the Red Sox-Orioles game remains stuck on “3-2 R,” and everybody expects the R to become an F; eloquent cursing of Bud Selig is planned.

Ben Zobrist and Casey Kotchman go down quickly for the Rays, bringing up Sam Fuld, a player whose education and background made him a favorite of mine despite his offensive production not meeting the expectations his early-season outburst might have predicted.

A tug on my sleeve. “LISTEN!”

Walkup (or at-bat, if you prefer) music is kind of stupid. It’s something that did not exist in baseball until very recently, something that has wedged its way into the game so forcefully it will probably never go away, and it makes games even longer than they already were. The only positive quality I find for walkup music is how it reflects the personality of quirky players (in other words, if it isn’t metal or rap, it’s someone worth getting to know) and how it announces pinch hitters.

We can dance if we want to, we can leave your friends behind. ‘Cause your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance, well, they’re no friends of mine.

It is fitting that Dan Johnson‘s walkup music is from a one-hit wonder. You are familiar with the story of Dan Johnson. ESPN has ensured that, by now. The story of Dan Johnson is that he once hit the most important homer in franchise history, but tonight he will strike out. When the count went to two strikes, this was how his, and the Rays’, story ends. The Sundays play on a loop at 500x speed.

Maybe the ball hits the guy two rows in front of me in a sensitive place. I will never know this, but I know that I am in section 140, and section 140 is in fair territory, and the ball is in section 140, and I am jumping around like an idiot. My Twitter silence has led to genuine concern from the community.

The “R” is now a “D” on the Sox-O’s scoreboard. What does this mean? Nobody knows. In the bottom of the 11th, the Rays get two men on with one out. There are bright orange lights, ones meant to evoke the citrus fruit, that illuminate the translucent Trop roof when the Rays are victorious. Those lights are on. I am infuriated. This is the most jinxy of all jinxes. When the Yankees escape the inning, several thousand fans head for the exits; the kids have school in the morning, after all.

All hope is not lost, though. Scott Proctor is pitching!

The out-of-town scoreboard is now updating again, though slowly. The bottom of the 9th in Baltimore is taking an exceptionally long time, it seems. Here in St. Pete, it’s the 12th, and the Yankees are going to score — you know they’re going to score, until Evan Longoria does something ridiculous, tagging out a runner at third just as a murmuring bubbles up from the crowd. Something is happening. Annoying whiteboard guy stands up.

3-3.

30 seconds later, it’s reflected on the Trop ribbon board. Those of us with voices left roar in approval. The roars become an uncreative chant of B.J. Upton‘s name. It is striking how very loud 20,000 people (mind you, the Yankee fans were not participating) saying the same thing in unison can be. Upton responds by striking out. The chant becomes a murmur, again. A more energetic murmur, this time, and people are holding up mobile phones, thrusting them into the faces of people who will not believe until it is reflected on the Trop out-of-town scoreboard.

There is always some proof supporting faith. For the spiritual, proof is in miracles or words describing the acts of deities. The threshold for proof leading to faith differs from person to person. Wednesday night, the communication chaos surrounding what was happening in Baltimore was akin to what happened on Twitter the day Osama bin Laden was killed; yes, there were seemingly-dependable sources reporting it, but many people were not prepared to fully accept it as truth until spoken by the President.

And so just as Evan Longoria comes to bat, the violin strokes of his walkup music blast through the stadium PA, faith eroded to fact.

F RED SOX 3 ORIOLES 4

Vocal folds torn ragged emit the high-pitched head voice yells of college cheerleaders, or the enuched whistle-voice that spouts out the top of the skull, ricochets off the roof structures, and few of us know it is Carl Crawford who delivered us this lovely gift.

He’ll give us another.

There is a notch in the Tropicana Field wall next to the left field foul pole. It is known as the “Crawford cutout,” and it was created in hopes the former Ray and current Red Sox outfielder would use it to rob opponents of home runs. He did this exactly once during his tenure in St. Petersburg.

Through this notch goes flying a ball off the bat of Evan Longoria, a sure double, but not hit well-enough to be a home run. I’ve seen this before, in 1998, when Mark McGwire hit #62 off Steve Trachsel, a solid line drive that somehow became iconic, famous, on the front page of the New York Times when it just never stopped flying.

The foghorn sounds, Kiss plays on the PA, but in the stands we are strangely silent, mouths wide open but no sound coming out. Nobody has a voice left with which to celebrate.

The orange lights illuminate the roof, this time with authority. The chaos of the natural forest flying by aligns perfectly, straight rows that let you see through for miles.

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The title of this piece is adapted bashfully from this famous Harlan Ellison work.

Follow Timothy on Twitter at @bubbaprog.

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