The title quote is especially true in Yogi Berra’s game—baseball. Here are two “til it’s over” stories, one from MLB, the other I experienced as a youth player.
In football and basketball, and even in hockey and soccer, you can pretty much know that the team that is well ahead is going to win as the clock begins to wind down. Not so in baseball, which does not end until the winning team records 27 outs.
And those final outs can be hard to come by!
This was once again illustrated for me by my beleaguered team, the San Francisco Giants, who have suffered through a horrible season and were eliminated from the postseason by Labor Day. However, the minor leaguers they have brought up late in the season are playing with great enthusiasm and energy, and on Wednesday, September 9, they pulled off an amazing comeback to defeat the St. Louis Cardinals, who still have slim hopes of making the playoffs.
The Giants, playing at home, trailed 6-1 heading into the bottom of the eighth inning. They had a man on first base with two outs and had yet to score. After Brett Harris was hit by a pitch and Turner Hill drew a walk, Bryce Eldridge singled, Jonah Cox beat out a roller to short for an infield single, Jung Hoo Lee doubled, and Shay Whitcomb doubled. When the dust had cleared, the Giants had scored six runs to take the lead, 7-6, and reliever Trent Harris shut down the Cards in the top of the ninth for the win.
That game brought back memories of a very similar game I played in the summer of 1971 at the Connie Mack World Series in Farmington, New Mexico.
My high school team in Hackensack, New Jersey, won our league with a 16-2 record. We had an All-County catcher, Art Sarro, an All-County shortstop, Tom D’Arminio, and I was the first-team All-League selection at second base.
We kept most of that team together for our summer Connie Mack League team. I played third base so that Mike Gnerre, a talented left-handed hitter, could play second base. We won our league, suffering just one defeat, then won the double-elimination State tournament without a loss. That qualified us for the North Atlantic Regional tournament, also a double-elimination tournament.
Photo courtesy of the City of Farmington, NM
We won all four games to earn a trip to the World Series, which featured the top teams from the eight regions across the United States in a double-elimination tournament.
In our first game, we faced the host team from Farmington in an evening contest, and the stands were packed with the locals rooting for their team. By a coin flip, we were the home team, and we trailed 7-2 heading into the bottom of the last frame.
With the bases loaded and two outs, our manager, Howard Shaw, sent up little-used Paul Cafone as a pinch hitter. Paul was short, not known for his hitting prowess. I guess Coach Shaw hoped Paul might draw a walk. But Paul had a mind to hit, and he swung and lifted a pop fly down the right field line, just beyond the reach of the first baseman. The ball landed fair, then spun into foul ground, and Paul ended up on second with a double that drove in two runs and cut the lead to 7-4.
I was up next and hit a hard ground ball up the middle, past the pitcher, beyond the second baseman (I think he just tipped it with his glove), for a single to drive in a run and put men on first and third. Now we had chopped the lead down to 7-5.
Our next batter walked, moving me to second base. Coach Shaw wisely pinch-ran speedster Jim Parisi for me, as I had barely average speed, and I represented the tying run.
My memory gets a bit foggy here as I watched the drama unfold from the bench. As I recall, a passed ball allowed the runner on third to score, making it 7-6 and advancing Parisi to third and the runner on first to second base, representing the winning run. The next batter must have gotten a hit, because I know Parisi scored to tie the game at 7-7 and the man on second advanced to third.
That brought up Rich Toscano, a left-handed pitcher and hitter, who, when I was a Little League pitcher, always plagued me by reaching out for my low outside fastballs and poking them into left field for hits.
Now Rich did the same thing, extending his arms for an outside pitch and smacking it between the shortstop and third baseman for the game-winning hit. We had come back to win 8-7. I was so excited that when I leaped off the bench, I hit my head on the top of the dugout. No damage was done as I joined in the mad rush onto the field to congratulate Rich for his walk-off hit and to celebrate.
Unfortunately, we lost our next game to Cincinnati, then were eliminated in a close 5-4 game by the eventual national champion from Dallas.
But we will never forget that comeback win, proving Yogi’s maxim: in baseball, “it truly ain’t over ‘til it’s over!”
