Not for the faint of heart

In case there's anyone on Planet Earth who hasn't seen it--

Do NOT click the above if you are squeamish!

Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age, or maybe it's just because I have respect for Hideki Matsui in general (more than for, say, Giambi, although that's not difficult), but I felt physically ill after watching the multiple slow-mo replays of Matsui's left arm SNAPPING in left field. After the initial stomach-turning fracture, an even more traumatic image followed for those of us watching at home: Matsui's glove hand dangling loose from his mangled limb as he felt around for the ball and threw it weakly back to the infield.

Shudder. Disgusting. Just gross, on a human level.

Preliminary reports are that Matsui's arm was fractured badly enough to require surgery tomorrow, and that he will be out a minimum of four months. Even though Matsui is a beast and I have nightmares about him like Joe Torre does about Big Papi, I can't even be glad about that, because SERIOUSLY his arm went CRUNCH RIGHT THERE ON TV. BLAGGHHHH.

Undoubtedly the most horrific injury I've ever seen as it happened on a baseball field (only because I wasn't watching live when the Mets' Carlos Beltran and Mike Cameron had their grisly collision last year).

***

Anyway, so! HOLY SHIT THIS WAS THE LONGEST GAME IN HISTORY, HUH?

The definition of a grinder - as grotesque as the Matsui thing was, at this point, it feels like it happened last week. This game was an EPIC. (My brain, perhaps predictably, is down to a quivering nubbin of cerebellum controlling my breathing and typing functions, but otherwise, I'm pretty well fried at this point--so please chalk up any further incoherence in this post to those factors.)

The first, oh, six and two thirds innings were, as Annette put it, "hair-ripping frustration", plain and simple. THREE TIMES the Sox had the bases loaded and THREE TIMES they left 'em just like that. THREE. TIMES. Holy God, I need to find a healthier addiction. Like chewing lightbulbs. Or extreme body piercing. You know, the kind of piercing where they hang themselves up by...well, you know what kind I'm talking about.

Suffice to say, somewhere around nine o'clock, I found to my astonishment that it was only the fourth inning. I've seen footage of neurosurgeries on the Discovery Health Channel less painstaking and tense than this.

And then all of a sudden Jeter floundered around like an old fish in the hole at shortstop while the rain came down and Mark Loretta was safe at first and we actually scored some runs--

--and then just like that...we were ahead?

Then just as suddenly, it was back to the grind.

Timlin had a studly strikeout of A-Rod, and Foulke managed to get some outs despite a lead-off double from "The Hastily Renanimated Corpse of Bernie Williams" (tm Amy in the South). By then, I don't know about you, but it was paper bag time once again in my household.

Because Papelbon was brought in to get Miguel Cairo, and Miguel Cairo proceeded to foul off approximately 1,523 pitches before Papelbon finally got him on a FILTHY, NASTY split, the kind you can only fully describe using profanity and various gestures of macho enthusiasm such as fist pumps and pelvic thrusts and, if you are so limber, flying helicopter ninja kicks.

It was...it was...

Home runs robbed. Sure-thing outs thrown away. A small village stranded on base. A rainstorm. Dozens of stolen bases (or so it seemed). Curt Schilling leaving, in full uniform, to be attended to "at a medical facility" for a "non-baseball-related issue", and shuttled there in an official Yankees vehicle (for the sake of my sanity, I have decided he had a toothache). Matsui terribly hurt. Johnny Damon reinjuring his shoulder. Willie Harris getting a double off Mariano Rivera. On the CUTTER.

Four hours and fifteen minutes. 21 hits, eleven pitchers, eight runs, one error and a partridge in a freakin' pear tree.

...it was Red Sox-Yankees baseball, c. early 21st century. Nothing more and nothing less.

Comments

[Hunter]

Earlier I watched game six of the '04 ALCS, and was amazed about how every out was so important, and looked at all the wasted potentials, and the things that could have changed the game if a ball moved just an inch or two differently, and I realized I hadn't seen a game with that much intensity, where every person who came on plate was a potential tying/winning run, where every run was a precious commodity to be guarded at every turn. I wondered when the next time I was going to see such a tight, scary, back-and-forth game.

It turned out the answer was roughly five hours.

[beth]

every time these two teams go into a series, i just sit back and wonder, "what the fuck could possibly happen next?"

what actually ends up happening is usually not something i'd ever have guessed.

[Runan]

The Matsui injury was bad, but have you seen the Aaron Rowand catch-and-smash on the SP highlights? He ended up breaking his nose against the wall, so of COURSE the camera zooms in to show all the blood gushing out...

[Runan]

...That would be SC, not SP.

[beth]

yeah, i actually have seen that. it was a violent day in baseball yesterday.

[Robin]

While Matsui's injury was squirmy-painful to see, the worst one I remember is when Bryce Florie took a liner in the eye in 2000, shattering his cheekbone and orbital socket. Naturally, the cameras zoomed in on his face as it swelled and purpuled in a matter of seconds. It looked like some time-lapse video for medical school, or the baseball equivalent of the car crash movies in drivers' ed. Friends don't let friends pitch baseballs. Eeek.

[anne]

that matsui injury ... gross. they kept showing it over and over again! although i will say it was the first time i've ever seen matsui show emotion ...

[Cathryn]

Watching a part of the human body bend in a direction it's not supposed to go is one of the most viscerally disturbing experiences I can think of.

[pdb]

I still have nightmares about Jason Kendall's ankle exploding on his way to first. When the Matsui injury happened, I changed the channel for five minutes, because I know they were going to replay it several times.

I have a high tolerance for pain, but I can't stomach watching things like that happen to people. Even Yankees.

[Katie]

I didn't realize how gross Matsui's injury was until they showed the replay 4,000 times his hand was just like hanging there ew and now imagine being at that game I was freaking out cause we were down then my dad goes Kate chill it's only the 4th inning and i was like wow not to mention my loss of voice after the game

[Katie]

I didn't realize how gross Matsui's injury was until they showed the replay 4,000 times his hand was just like hanging there ew and now imagine being at that game I was freaking out cause we were down then my dad goes Kate chill it's only the 4th inning and i was like wow not to mention my loss of voice after the game

[Katie]

sorry about the double comment i'm having a mike lowell moment