St. Petersburg, Florida — You can bet there will be some exhausted Rays fans heading into work Monday morning. The team wrapped up its longest game ever — just hours ago.
It finally ended early Monday morning in a 1-0 loss to the Boston Red Sox, but not before playing 5 hours and 44 minutes, with no runs scored by anyone for the first 15 innings.
This game was a weird one right from the first pitch, just before 8 p.m. Performers from Cirque du Soleil got it going, juggling nearly a dozen baseballs, then tossing one over home plate.
Innings and hours passed by and — bam! A pop-up from Sean Rodriguez shattered a light hanging from one of Tropicana Field’s wonderful catwalks.
Innings and hours passed by and — bam! A pop-up from Sean Rodriguez shattered a light hanging from one of Tropicana Field’s wonderful catwalks.
Everything stopped for several minutes as a clean-up crew picked pieces of hot, shattered glass out of the AstroTurf.
Then, in the 11th inning, Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon expressed his disappointment after a call and was ejected.
He was gone, but about 8,000 to 10,000 fans stuck around.
Rays mascot Raymond put on his pajamas and settled in. At one point he propped up his feet and leaned back in a chair — probably in the same pose as the thousands of people watching at home on ESPN; this was the network’s national game of the week.
The mascot has pajamas? Seems so: