or… why you should never leave a sporting event until the game is actually over.

(warning! this is a post about baseball. if you do not like baseball, just be patient and i’m sure i’ll be back in a few days with something else to say that isn’t of a baseball nature :) )

so the guys i work for got free tickets to the dodgers game tonight against the san diego padres from their parents. after trying unsuccessfully to find someone to take the 4th ticket, we ended up selling it for less than face value in the lot. the game started out pretty well, the padres scored four runs in the top of the 1st and the dodgers answered with one run in each of the first two innings. it was tied 4-4 all the way till the 8th inning, when the score was 6-5 at the end of the 8th. during the 6th, 7th and 8th innings, people were steadily filing out of the ball park. i mean, i understand a little bit, because it *is* a monday night after all. people still have to work and go to school, etc etc.

when the padres scored 3 runs in the top of the 9th to take the lead 9-5, people started heading for the exits in DROVES. my friends were talking about heading out and i told them, tongue in cheek-ly, “they only need one grand slam and they’re right back in this!” we kind of laughed about it, but when the first two dodgers each hit a home run, we started getting hope that the dodgers would at least make a game of it. the two lead off home runs prompted the padres to bring out trevor hoffman, the man who is about to become the all-time saves leader in baseball history, and the man who apparently hasn’t blown a save against the dodgers for several years. well, hoffman gave up two more home runs, giving the dodgers 4 home runs in a row! :shock: the last time a team hit 4 home runs in a row in one inning was 1964! and apparently it has never happened to tie a game EVER.

so we go into the 10th inning, and through a couple of well-placed hits, the padres take a one run lead going into the bottom of the 10th. the first batter for the dodgers gets walked, and then nomar garciaparra came up and blasted a ball literally out of the park to win the game. this was one of the best baseball games i have seen in person, probably the best one i’ve seen in the majors. and the exact reason why you should never leave the game early without an absolutely perfectly good reason to leave before the game is actually done. in the words of the great yogi berra, “it ain’t over till it’s over” :)