Bronx, N.Y., June 12, 2009 — The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, opened on June 12, 1939, exactly 100 years after some sources give as the day the first baseball game in America was played. In the Hall, you can learn that the first “perfect” game was pitched by John Lee Richmond of the Worcester Ruby Legs, again on June 12, in a game that took place in 1880. There was nothing perfect about the ballgame played between the Mets and Yankees in the Bronx 129 years later, Friday night, June 12, 2009. This three-hour, 47-minute battle’s only chance to make an all-time superlative list would be under the heading of “most excruciating game ever.”

Yankee fans watching young Joba Chamberlain pound the zone with 93-mph fastballs, a low-eighties change and a killer slider at 86 mph in the first inning, and comparing it to the 85-mph bp fastballs Livan Hernandez was countering with, had to be a little confident early, particularly once second baseman Robinson Cano gave them an early 1-0 lead with a second-inning homer to right. Four pitches later Jorge Posada doubled off the wall in dead center. The good times were over, however, once Posada died on second base.

Little did the two passionate fanbases filling the Stadium know it, but there were both in for an agonizing evening. The Yankee fans, reeling from a sweep of their team in Boston and in need of some reassurance, took the brunt of this for most of a painfully long game. Chamberlain emerged from the home dugout for the top of the third inning with his 1-0 lead and absolutely no control of his fastball. He labored through 42 pitches, 20 of which missed the plate, and handed the vistors a 2-1 lead on three walks and two hit by pitches. He was leading again on a Mark Teixeira home run in the third when he followed two fly outs by falling behind the next two batters 3-0 before walking them. It’s hard to believe this is the kid who burst on the scene in late 2007 by walking just six batters in his first 24 innings, as he issued five free passes in his final two frames this evening, ceding any chance to win this one by exiting having thrown 99 pitches in just four innings.

Still, the Yanks were up 3-2, but the agony was far from over. Veteran righty Brett Tomko took the mound in the fifth to quick and destructive results. Granted, right fielder Nick Swisher did him no favors by badly misplaying Carlos Beltran’s liner near the wall into a double. But long hard-hit balls are not a good thing, and neither were the walk, line double to right center, and towering home run inside the top of the left field foul pole he surrendered to the next three batters, with ex-Yank Gary Sheffield providing that last definitive blow. Tomko finally got two outs, but a walk had manager Joe Girardi replacing him with young righty David Robertson, who finished the inning with the first of his three strike outs with the Yanks down 6-3.

I don’t mean to give the Mets’ fanbase short shrift in the agony department. They had just lost two of three at home to their rivals, the Phillies, and it cannot have been enjoyable to see the Yanks take the 1-0 and 3-2 leads on home runs. Still, those were darts, sudden disruptions to their evening, not multi-pitch twists of the knife. Even the Yankee comeback, achieved on a Derek Jeter fifth-inning singleton homer, and the birthdaying Hideki Matsui’s sixth-inning, three-run bomb off rookie lefty Jon Switzer, were somewhat sudden, handing the Yanks a 7-6 lead.

But the Mets fans were uplifted almost as quickly as they were brought down, as their team rallied for the 7-7 tie off Robertson (who gave up a leadoff seventh-inning Sheffield double to right, something Gary didn’t do much the last time he played in the Bronx for a New York team) and Yankee southpaw Phil Coke. Despite allowing a single to Daniel Murphy when he came on, Coke was superb, shutting down the threat on a run-scoring dp grounder and a bouncer to the box. The young lefty was good in the eighth too, retiring the first two batters on six throws, one of them on an infield popup Jeter snatched in a play reminiscent of one Billy Martin made in the 1952 World Series against Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson.

But with arguably the Mets’ best offensive player coming to bat in switch hitter Beltran, Girardi made a sudden and curious decision. The Yanks are off to interleague cities they rarely visit next week in Miami and and Atlanta. I don’t know what gambling opportunities either might present these days, but I would urge the Yankee manager to avoid plunking down the rent money on any hunches he might come up with in either place. His most recent gut decisions have not worked out, not only in Boston this week, but also in the ways he has decided to use (and to not use) closer Mariano Rivera. Perhaps with Thursday’s loss in Fenway where CC Sabathia and Alfredo Aceves failed to thwart the winning rally while Rivera sat in the eighth inning in mind, he replaced the sharp Coke with Mo. It did not work out. Rivera issued a rare six-pitch walk to Beltran, and was reached for an rbi double by David Wright on a 2-2 pitch.

As was clear to any Yankee fan in attendance, this took a long, frustrating, and agonizing evening and shifted it down a peg to devastating. The Mets had a one-run lead, and once Sean Green retired the Yanks in order in the eighth and Rivera did the same to the Mets in the ninth, the visitors had closer Francisco Rodriguez waiting. The crown jewel of the Flushing 2009 free-agent class, Rodriguez not only had a spotless 16-for-16 record in saves for the 2009 Mets coming in, he has given the Yanks fits before, all the way back to when he came up as a rookie in 2002 and helped end their playoff run out of the Anaheim Angels bullpen.

But although “K-Rod” set an unlikely to be equaled season record for saves last year, he is not a classic like Rivera has been. He often throws too many pitches, missing the zone more often than would be ideal. And it was this aspect that was at the root of why this was really such a bad game, and why the Yanks were really so much worse much over the whole evening. Yankee pitching threw 212 pitches Friday night, and the fact that so many (91) of them missed the zone (a tone that was set by Chamberlain’s very poor 48/51 balls/strikes ratio) made for such an excruciating experience. The Mets threw “just” 163, not a figure to be proud of in a nine-inning game either. In fact, 10 times in this game a pitcher on one of the two teams threw exactly as many balls as strikes in an inning. Appalling baseball, really.

This of course does not excuse what happened in the bottom of the ninth. Girardi made another questionable decision, allowing Brett Gardner to lead off, and pinch-hitting for the patient, pitch-accumulating Swisher with Johnny Damon two batters later. Certainly the idea of the speedy Gardner starting the frame on first base had appeal, but he had to earn the base; instead he popped out. Derek Jeter singled up the middle on five pitches, and Damon came off the bench and battled Rodriguez gamely through nine pitches, finally going down swinging as Jeter stole second. K-Rod fell behind the dangerous Teixeira 3-0 before putting him on intentionally, then fell behind Alex Rodriguez 3-0 as well. Alex took strike one, then lifted a high popup toward second baseman Luis Castillo.

There is no way the Yankees and their fans “deserved” what happened next. But it needs to be said that the quintessentially professional Jeter and Teixeira, who is slow-footed at that, did what should be done. They ran for all they were worth while the ball was in the air. And they (along with their teammates and tens of thousands of fans) were rewarded for their hustle when Castillo stumbled trying to make a one-handed catch and dropped the ball, flubbing one of the easier plays you’ll ever see. Luis tossed the ball to Alex Cora from his knees, but his relay arrived after Tex’s slide into home, and the Yanks had an unlikely 9-8 win.

Known as “The Master of Disaster” in the movie business, the late producer Irwin Allen would have been celebrating his 93rd birthday June 12. Responsible for the taut big-budget dramas The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, it’s doubtful even a master like Allen could have produced a script for this far from perfect game. It would have excited the masses, yes, and got the turnstiles turning. But who would have believed it could all revolve around such a simple plot twist?

Hit ’em Where They Are!

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!