It probably wasn’t the greatest game in postseason history—I’d still pick Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, the one where Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk waved his extra-inning walk-off home run fair, for that honor—but it was almost certainly the greatest game to be played since the major leagues went to the League Championship format. At five hours forty-nine minutes it was the longest, and the teams who engaged in the struggle were surely the most evenly matched. When it ended, the Red Sox had scored one more run (five to the Yankees’ four) and managed one more hit (thirteen to the Yankees’ twelve). Each team used seven pitchers, and each committed a single error. The game, which began in broad daylight at 5:20 in the afternoon, ended just an hour shy of midnight, in the bottom of the fourteenth. I have never been so simultaneously drained and exalted at the conclusion of a sporting event; would have believed, prior to last night, the two states of emotional being were mutually exclusive.

According to this morning’s box score, there were 35,120 in attendance, but if the Red Sox pull off the ultimate miracle of St. Fenway and go on to the World Series—unlikely, especially with the ALCS now returning to Yankee Stadium,[77] but no longer wildly improbable—ten years from now there’ll be a million New Englanders, most of them from Massachusetts, telling their children, grandchildren, bar buddies and anyone else who will listen that they were there on the night the Sox beat the Yanks in fourteen.

Both managers used up almost every damned reliever they had once the starters (Martinez for Boston, Mussina for New York) were gone. Boston finished up with Tim Wakefield, the goat in last year’s ALCS Game 7 (the Boone home run), the hero last night… in spite of Jason Varitek’s miseries with the knuckleball behind the plate. The Yankees finished with Esteban Loaiza, who barely made the New York playoff roster. Loaiza, nothing short of horrible for the Yankees during the regular season, was terrific last night until the fourteenth… and even then he did not beat himself. David Ortiz, who has pretty much carried the Red Sox offensively this postseason, beat Loaiza and necessitated Game 6; if the Yankees win the ALCS and then lose the World Series, it may be Ortiz who they will blame.

Mark Bellhorn led the bottom of the fourteenth doing what he has, unfortunately, done best offensively for his team in the postseason: he struck out. Then Johnny Damon, who had a good ALDS and is having a hideous ALCS (in his previous at-bat, he popped out weakly to Jorge Posada while trying to bunt, effectively killing what might have been a game-winning rally in the eleventh), worked Loaiza for a walk. Cabrera struck out. Manny Ramirez coaxed a second walk from Loaiza, and that set the stage for Papi.