Last night's baseball: That was kind of interesting

I'm not sure how or why it happened, and I haven't bothered to try to figure it out.

But this is the first two-year stretch I haven't seen a major-league baseball game in person since my age had one digit. And I haven't missed it. As a gag before the season, I declared myself a Pittsburgh Pirates fan. Just so I wouldn't have to worry about following a good team. (Then the Pirates were actually pretty good in the first half of the season. Fortunately, they went back to being the Pirates and finished 72-90. Which was still a game better than the Cubs.)

I no longer watch MLB games on TV, I don't know the names of the batting champions or home run leaders, and I'm stumped to name a single player on the San Diego Padres or Houston Astros or Kansas City Royals. I have no idea who plays shortstop or catcher for the Cubs, or even who manages them. I didn't know Andruw Jones was a Yankee until tonight. I didn't know Andruw Jones was still playing.

I can't remember if I saw a single pitch of last year's World Series. I did, however, watch a considerable portion of the Beef O'Brady's Bowl from the same stadium the Tampa Bay Rays call home. Louisville beat Southern Mississippi, as if you didn't know.

Maybe I ditched baseball it's because life is so much busier. I didn't have this blog to constantly be fed until a few years ago, and there was no weekly Monday night TV show to start thinking about on Sunday afternoons, and blah blah blah. It's great to have a good job, period, the end, no idiotic complaints. But life is busier, the days seem shorter, and the months go faster, so I don't spend three hours watching a baseball game on TV, let alone three minutes poring over box scores.

But there's still nothing quite like great late-September pennant-race drama, and when Wednesday was the last day of the baseball season and four games were being played simultaneously that would determine playoff spots, I was drawn back in as if I'd never left.

After getting home from work, I went for a two-mile walk at 6 p.m., with my trusty XM satellite radio portable unit. I listened to the top of the first inning of the Yankees-Tampa Bay game, and it seemed to take all of that two miles. A fellow named Price, the Tampa starting pitcher, threw 30 or so pitches. The Yankees scored a run because a grounder went through the legs of Tampa's first baseman. The Tampa announcers sound utterly discouraged, saying this wasn't a team with the offense to make up for defensive mistakes.

I got back home, had dinner, watched the always-funny "Modern Family" with my wife, then adjourned to my little room with a TV and laptop to see how the games were going. The Yankees led 6-0 on the way to 7-0. The Cardinals had a big lead at Houston and would wait to see if Atlanta won or lost against Philadelphia. I sort of paid attention, but also noodled around the Internet to see if any football news was out there.

You know the rest. The two AL games and the Phillies-Braves game had gripping tension and unforgettable moments. Two of the three games went extra innings. The Phillies, not needing to win, played to do so anyhow, capping the Braves' Choke of 2011. The Red Sox were a strike away from winning at Baltimore, the Rays were a strike away from losing. Neither happened. A banjo hitter named Dan Johnson hit a game-tying homer for Tampa Bay with two out and two strikes in the last of the ninth inning.

With two out and nobody on in bottom of the ninth and Boston leading 3-2, Baltimore players named Davis and Reibold and Andino got hits off Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon, and the Red Sox lost for the first time in 78 games this season when they took a lead into the ninth inning. The Orioles celebrated as if they'd made it into the playoffs, which they missed out on by 22 games. The Rays, who went from 7-0 down to a 7-7 tie, got a line drive homer from Evan Longoria to beat the Yankees in the 12th inning to enter the playoffs. It seemed to take about 1.5 seconds to go from Longoria's bat to home run territory. Just like that, it was if the Red Sox' two world championships of 2004 and 2007 never happened and the franchise was again cursed.

The Red Sox and Rays finishes were within three minutes of each other. It was incredible theater, preposterous in its unlikelihood, ending with childlike glee and soul-crushing disappointment. Shock was apparent with both the winning Rays and losing Red Sox and Braves. People quickly called it the best night of baseball ever. Maybe it was.

OK, it's not Reibold, it's Reimold. Nolan Reimold. But I got Andino's name right. It's a start.