Last night's game against the Hanshin Tigers in Tokyo was epic. The 11:00 pm start time. The dueling national anthems. The boom sticks. The constant chants and fight songs. The lack of helpful graphics and scoreboard on the screen. The two rows of bowling alley seats in the dugouts. The homeruns from Big Papi and J.D. Drew. The typical closing shutdown by Papelbon. Watching a broadcast entirely in Japanese, and still- somehow- kind of sort of understanding what they were saying, just from the inflection of their voices.
But, oddly enough, the highlight of the game has to be one of the worst moments of the game. The kind of thing that, were this a regular season game, would give us all fits.
Kyle Snyder's wild pitch. And I do mean WILD.
The ball smacks the dirt way in front of the left-hand batter's box, and careens off of Jason Varitek's chest and completely off camera. The gleeful reactions of the Japanese broadcast crew are priceless. The pitch is so horrible, it's beautiful; so awful, it's awesome.
I've got video of the Wild Pitch of Doom-- and I included the entire at-bat so you could see some of the atmosphere in Tokyo. (if you want to go straight to the WP, try the 2:00 minute mark.)
video courtesy of MLB
on March 22, 2008 12:56 PM
I always wonder exactly what Tek is saying when he goes out to the mound. This time it must have been, "Next pitch I want you try for the wildest wild pitch ever. C'mon! It'll be epic!" Seriously one of the funniest things I've seen in a while.