Dan's Papers - October 26, 2007 - I've Seen this Baseball Game Before. No You Haven't. Yes I Have.

As Tuesday night is the night we prepare the newspaper to go to the printer, I knew by mid-afternoon that there would be a problem. I was not going to be able to watch the fourth game of the American League Pennant playoffs on television. That game, between the Red Sox and the Indians, was scheduled for 8 p.m. that night in Cleveland. At 8 p.m., right through midnight, I'd be busy at the paper with no access to the game.

At 4 p.m., my son David Lion Rattiner said he would be leaving the office to get something at home. So in a stroke of genius I asked him to set the TV for Fox5 at 8 p.m. and press record. He said he wanted to see the game, too. So we thought we'd just watch it together later.

And so, come midnight, we got home and put the game on. Even though it was over, neither of us knew who won. There were some people at the office who did and they offered to enlighten us. We told them to keep it to themselves.

"Paper looks good," I said, because indeed it did. "Wrap it up, everybody, I'm going home."

At home, Dave and I sat on the sofa and turned the game on - it was long over by this time - and we began to watch it from the beginning, but in fast-forward. It was midnight, after all. We just wanted to watch the last few innings.

"This game is progressing very much as game one," I said, as we slowed the fast- forward down to play. It was six to three in favor of Boston at the time. "It's even got the same pitchers."

This was in the sixth inning. David didn't say anything. At that moment, somebody hit a fly ball to left, and behind the left fielder onto the Green Monster, which is what they call the left field wall in Boston, there was a sign announcing that the Rockies were playing the Diamondbacks at 9 p.m. Central time.

"That's funny," I said.

"The Rockies swept the Diamondbacks in four straight. They're not playing each other anymore."

"Maybe they just left the sign up," David said.

As if on cue, the announcer said the following. "Later tonight, it's the Colorado Rockies versus the Arizona Diamondbacks. Game one."

"We're watching game one," I said.

"No we're not. I recorded tonight's game. This is game four."

The Boston manager, at this point, went out to the mound and waved to the dugout for a new pitcher.

"This is the exact same pitcher they brought in during game one," I said. "Relieving the same guy. Same inning. I saw game one."

"They've had three games rest."

"I'm telling you this is game one. Look. Boston is in white. Cleveland is wearing gray. The home team always wears white. It's in Fenway. This fourth game is in Cleveland."

At this point, David said something that started a sort of fight, or quibble anyway.

"Are you accusing me of recording the first game instead of the fourth game?"

I looked at him. "I SAW the first game," I said. "And this is it. And I saw it on this television."

"I'm telling you this is the fourth game," David said. "Dad, get real. I recorded the fourth game."

"We're going to take a break now," the announcer said, "while Borowski takes his warm-up pitches. You're watching the first game of the American League Playoffs, Cleveland versus Boston and we'll be right back."

Now, the truth is that it was about twenty minutes past midnight and we'd both worked about fifteen hours and were tired and irritable. So what went through my mind at this point was, maybe my mind is deceiving me. Maybe the kid is right. He's generally right. And so from that point on, I began to look for evidence, despite all evidence to the contrary, that what I was looking at was the fourth game rather than the first game.

And I thought I found it. Somebody fouled out. I could not for the life of me remember this guy fouling out in the first game. So there it was. Something from the fourth game. The next batter hit a fly ball that was going to drop between the left fielder and center fielder for a hit. A run would score. But no! Manny Ramirez, the Red Sox left fielder, made a tremendous dive for the ball, caught it in the web of his mitt and then rolled over and over before coming to a stop. He sat on the grass and picked the ball out of his mitt and held it up. There was a big smile on his face.

"What a catch! What a catch!" shouted the umpire. "And yes, I think he got some leather between the ball and the ground. A great catch."

There was no mistaking it. This was a spectacular catch from the first game, and the announcer had said exactly the same thing, "leather between the ball and the ground," an unusual thing to say.

"It's the first game," I said.

"Dad!" David exclaimed.

At this point, I successfully predicted what the next batter was going to do. He was going to hit a sizzling line drive, which the third baseman, trying to avoid it, was going to catch. And he did.

And so now, finally, the conversation changed. Now we were talking theories of how the hell the first game got recorded at the time the fourth game was played. We had theories. Maybe the fourth game had been rained out and they were showing the game from four days before. Unlikely, we both agreed. Maybe I had recorded the first game. But I didn't remember recording the first game. We looked in the list. Only this game, the fourth game, was recorded.

We looked at another theory. I had commented to David during the afternoon that when you record a baseball game these days, you really have to record not only the baseball game, but at least two hours of programming after the baseball game, which was surely going to be preempted because baseball games today are taking three and a half and four hours where in the past they only took two.

"I have no idea why this is," I said.

"Maybe they replayed the first game AFTER they played the fourth game," David said.

Eventually, Boston won this game by the same score as they won the first game. What a surprise.

I went up to go to sleep, and David got in his car and drove home to his place in Montauk. Then I called Tom Swinimer. He is the Delivery Manager for Dan's Papers and I knew he would still be up because he watches every single Boston Red Sox game. He was up. I had to know who won game four.

"Cleveland, 8 to 6," he said. "Cleveland leads 3 games to 1. It sure looks like Boston is doomed. Cleveland is going to have to stop the Colorado Rockies."

He said this without the slightest trace of emotion. Red Sox fans are used to saying things like this without the slightest trace of emotion. They are a realistic bunch.

The interesting thing about all of this, of course, is how you can look at something, be told it's another, and believe exactly what you've been told, in spite of what your eyes see for themselves.