Relive Friday's absurdly wonderful 19-inning Red Sox-Yankees game in convenient tweet form
The best tweets from Friday's Red Sox-Yankees game
If you didn't have plans on Friday night, you were in luck, because the Red Sox and Yankees decided to keep you company for 19 weird, glorious, seemingly non-stop innings. Even if you did have plans, you could have watched a few innings, met up with friends, had a late dinner, remembered you left your wallet at the restaurant, decided to get a scoop of ice cream on the way home and still be home to see the last few innings of the game. That's what happens when a team plays for six hours and 49 minutes.
To put it another way, the game that started at 7:05 p.m. ET finished after the Mets-Braves game that featured a one-hour rain delay. The Red Sox and Yankees were still playing after every West Coast game had started, finished, and everyone had gone home for the evening.
Not that anyone knew to expect it from the start. No, this one seemed perfectly normal -- at least until Chase Headley sent the game to extra innings with a ninth-inning homer:
At this point I wonder if Chase Headley is like "in retrospect, I have mixed emotions about tying this game in the 9th..."
- Hunter Felt (@HunterFelt) April 11, 2015
But things didn't seem ominous until the 12th inning, when the lights at the stadium went out for 16 minutes.
We're in a light delay. pic.twitter.com/bsjX3JI7CT
- Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) April 11, 2015
David Ortiz put the Red Sox up in the top of the 16th with a solo home run, but the just-turned-35-year-old Mark Teixeira tied it up:
Happy 35th, Mark Teixeira. We're sending a birthday cake down to the dugout. You were a mere child of 34 when this game began.
- Richard Justice (@richardjustice) April 11, 2015
As the game moved into the wee hours, people who started the night looking for romance were probably married and divorced:
Statistically speaking there were probably two people on a first date at this game. Imagine that.
- Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) April 11, 2015
Scorecards were ruined:
I tell you, the scorecard started out neat: pic.twitter.com/pY1YPCybcO
- Tim Britton (@TimBritton) April 11, 2015
TV schedules destroyed:
Due to the length of tonight's telecast, "Three's Company" will be joined already in progress.
- Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) April 11, 2015
In the 16th inning, even Bob Costas, baseball's poet laureate, ran out of things to say about the game. He instead devoted his time to discussing Switzerland's guinea pig laws:
@lana https://t.co/jhqGekysAX if u learned anything tonight, it's this from Bob Costas
- Victor (@GuyInGreenWWE) April 11, 2015
After Pablo Sandoval gave the Red Sox a lead in the top of the 18th -- only to watch Carlos Beltran tie it back up in the bottom half of the frame -- people were a little worried. After all, the scoreboard certainly seemed threatening:
Sweet, scoreboard goes up to 27 innings...right now. pic.twitter.com/nMqqmVVnt1
- Jessica Moran (@JessMoranCSN) April 11, 2015
People started to get a little stir crazy:
just put dogs in baseball uniforms and let them play i'm not totally sure we would even notice at this point
- Lana Berry (@Lana) April 11, 2015
Sadly, once it was all over thanks to a Mookie Betts sacrifice fly in the top of the 19th, we didn't even get to see a position player on the mound. Though we came awfully close. I think everyone would have happily stuck around for one more inning to see this:
Garrett Jones would've been the next Yankees pitcher, had it come to that.
- Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) April 11, 2015
And there was one person who didn't receive the recognition he probably deserved for seeing this one to the very end:
Our unsung hero award goes to ump Marty Foster, who was behind the plate for 628 pitches and 6 hours, 49 minutes.
- Richard Justice (@richardjustice) April 11, 2015
The players and umps won't have long to rest, though. Since first pitch is at 1:05 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, no players were sticking around when this one was over:
Pedroia: "I'm going to fine any player who talks to the media. It's 2 o'clock in the morning." He was joking. Maybe.
- Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) April 11, 2015