Looking deeper at the whole reason why Major League Baseball dominated Google Trends today, and a number of reasons come up all tied to Wednesday night, and what ESPN’s Mark Krieder called “perhaps the most emotionally volatile night in regular-season baseball history.”
Krieder explained that it was the Red Sox Collapse, the Atlanta Braves “heartbreak,” and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays “unrestrained, disbelieving joy.” And maybe too the San Francisco Giants failure to reach the playoffs, becoming the first World Series Champion to not reach the playoffs the next year, since 2007.
But that Tampa Bay Devil Rays comeback win against the New York Yankees? I saw that one happen first hand from a seat at The Royal Exchange in San Francisco Wednesday night.
A massive nacho’s craving lured me into the Royal Sexchange (as it’s called), and so I sat down and ordered a large plate of the combination of chips and beef and peppers and cheese, and with orange juice (no alcohol), watched as the Rays jumped from a 7 to 0 deficit against the Yankees to score eight runs in two inning and win 8 to 7.
That was crazy.
Since the Royal Exchange is an SF Giants bar, and there were people there from different cities rooting for different teams, there wasn’t the collective screaming, but there were expressions of shock – gaps here and there.
Meanwhile the Giants were over at San Francisco’s AT&T Park getting pounded out of the wild card race by the Colorado Rockies, 6 to 3.
Should MLB have one more playoff wild card slot? Yes. It makes more people engaged and leads to more internet searches, leading to more ad revenue for sports news websites.
Do it!
Bill Carroll