I went to game seven the other night.
What a game, let me tell you. It was an unbelievable pitchers’ duel — I really didn’t know who was going to win until the last out. And with so much on the line, I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. I could have sworn one team was going to let its lead in the series slip away.
I had fourth-row seats right behind home plate. Didn’t have to wait in any lines to get into the stadium. Didn’t have to pay for parking. Heck, didn’t even have to pay for a ticket.
I stayed right up through the end too — when Matt Packer struck out Franco Valdes to end the game.
That last out really put an exclamation point on a back-and-forth 2008 Orange and Blue World Series.
Forget the ALCS: This is the series you should have been following for the past two weeks. It had everything you could want: good pitching, clutch hits and a lot on the line.
No, the winner didn’t get a date with the Phillies. They got a steak and a T-shirt. Sounds good to me.
That’s the beauty of Virginia’s version of the fall classic, an annual event since 2003. It takes an intra-squad scrimmage and turns it into a consequential event. It makes errors and mental mistakes actually mean something. It puts a little bit of pressure on the pitchers to get out of a fourth-inning jam, or the right-fielder to come through with a two-strike hit.
And yes, a nice piece of beef and a cut of cloth really do have that kind of effect on these guys.
Don’t try to tell the Orange team it won’t be missing out on much. By letting game seven — and the series — slip out of its grasp, it will be eating hot dogs instead of filet mignon at the team’s holiday party this winter. The team members also will be helping to pay for the Blue team’s “2008 Orange/Blue World Series Champions” T-shirts.
So, yeah, it matters.
In all honesty, though, coach Brian O’Connor could probably have given the series winner tickets to an opera show and the two teams would have still gone at it. With 21 freshmen and sophomores on the roster, this was the last opportunity of fall practice for players to prove to the coaches that they’re ready to step in and play. According to NCAA rules, Virginia is not allowed to hold extended team practices again until later in the winter. Though the players will still be working out individually in the meantime, they won’t have an opportunity to get game experience and show the coaches their potential for at least a few more months.
When the Orange and Blue World Series came into existence in fall 2003, it was just a three-game series. The winning team had to win two games. If one team won the first two games, the other team could still win the series in the third game by making up the run differential of its first two losses.
This year, the series was made up of two three-game series, with the same rules applying to each series as in 2003. If the Blue team and Orange team each won one series each, there would be a deciding game seven to determine the winner of the whole thing. That was the case this year, and so a 2-1 win in game seven Tuesday night gave the Blue team its second straight World Series victory by the slimmest of margins.
Virginia’s fall classic reminds us that there’s good reason (and good opportunity) to follow our teams in the offseason. Whether it’s watching the football team’s intra-squad scrimmage in the spring, or the men’s lacrosse team play a group of alumni this Friday night, there are ways to get a glimpse of what lies ahead for each of our sports teams.
Based on the way the players on Blue and Orange played game seven, the future looks bright for O’Connor’s squad.
And before the coach starts thinking too much about setting up the indoor batting cages or about off-season training, he’s going to have to make a few trips to the grocery store; half his roster is waiting on a thick cut of sirloin.
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