| Page 4 of 5 < > |
Long Memories From a Baseball Classic
Flaming Benches, Tempers
"I'll never forget how cold it was, and how hard the wind was blowing -- straight in," said Marty Barrett, crossing the plate with the game-winning run in the 33rd inning, above. "You felt it as soon as you got out there. We all just wanted the night to go real fast."
(Courtesy Pawtucket Red Sox)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
In the bullpen of the old wooden stadium, the pitchers were tearing up the benches and burning them in a 55-gallon drum. In the dugout, some position players were doing the same thing with broken bats.
"My whole job at that point was trying to keep people warm," said Richie Bancells, who was Rochester's athletic trainer and now does the same job for the Orioles. "And at the same time, we were trying to keep the players fed. We had this clubhouse kid, and we had him out trying to scrounge up some food. I don't know where he was finding it, but he managed to find some."
"By around 12 or 1, it seemed like a lot of us got our second wind," said Pawtucket's Barrett. "We felt that way for two or three innings. But then all of a sudden, you hit a wall. By 4, we were almost delirious. . . . We went through the whole cycle of emotions: Exhausted, angry, punch-drunk."
Somewhere in the middle of the game -- which is to say, in perhaps the fifth or sixth hour -- Sam Bowen, Pawtucket's slugging right fielder, hammered a towering fly ball to center that looked like it would end the game.
"We thought to ourselves, 'Uh-oh,' " said Rochester pitcher Steve Luebber. "It looked like that was it. Our guys all started walking to the dugout."
Williams, Rochester's center fielder, swears the ball actually left the ballpark before being tugged back into play by the relentless wind.
"It was gone," Williams said. "But it came back in, and I caught it."
"Sam circled around in front of our dugout," Ripken said, "and he said, 'Boys, that's as good as I can hit it. If that one didn't get out, we're going to be here awhile.' "
In the top of the 21st, Rochester took the lead on an RBI double by catcher Dave Huppert. But Pawtucket tied it again in the bottom half when Boggs doubled home Koza. There were groans everywhere, even from the Pawtucket dugout.
"And then," Boggs said, "we played for another three hours."
Sometime shortly after p.m. became a.m. -- after what was once fun had become tiresome -- and with the windy, cold conditions making it all but impossible to generate offense, folks began to wonder if there was a curfew provision in the rule book that would have stipulated that umpires to suspend the game.
As it turns out, there was -- only nobody could locate the rule. Home plate umpire Jack Lietz's rule book, which he kept pulling out of his back pocket between innings to consult, was missing the rule about curfews.
