Finally, time to give it a rest

July 10, 2006|Bob Ryan, Globe Columnist

CHICAGO -- The scoreboard in right-center field was full of ``F"s, as in final scores. Even the West Coast games were complete. As a matter of fact, the Sunday night game between St. Louis and Houston was underway.

All-Star break getaway planes were being missed. Stomachs were growling. It goes without saying that most of the 39,335 who had been in attendance at U.S. Cellular Field were on their way home, with many able to watch several innings on television long after they had vacated their seats.

But the ballplayers kept playing. What choice did they have? You know that business about the great beauty of baseball being that it doesn't have a clock? Well, we noticed.

It coulda/shoulda/woulda been over after nine innings, but Jermaine Dye hit a two-out, game-tying home run off -- believe it or not -- Jonathan Papelbon. It coulda/shoulda/woulda been over after 11 innings, except that the White Sox came up with a pair of runs off Javier Lopez and Mike Timlin after the Red Sox had scored two in their half.

And then it locked in and went on and on and on until the White Sox put together four base hits in the 19th, the last of which, a single to left by Tadahito Iguchi, brought home Alex Cintron with the winning run in a 6-5 victory the White Sox will always be happy to pull out of the memory bank.

Yup, 19 innings, the longest game, both by innings and time (6 hours 19 minutes) since U.S. Cellular Field opened in 1991.

``I wish I could go to [censored] Bahamas, right now," declared White Sox skipper Ozzie Guillen, ever the wordsmith.

``I thought it was an unbelievable game while we were playing it," said Red Sox manager Terry Francona. ``It would be more fun to look back at and talk about if we had won."

The winner was Cliff Politte, who had been going so poorly (16 hits and 11 earned runs in his previous seven innings) his manager had been forced to defend the guy's right to draw a breath on this earth. The loser was Rudy Seanez, who was being let out of the pitching closet for the first time since June 30. Suffice it to say that both managers did everything they could to avoid using either man. Guillen even went to a starter (Javier Vazquez) for relief help for the second time in two days before turning to the righthanded Politte for the 19th.

Francona did not have to resort to that, but he did go through everyone in the bullpen before bringing out Seanez to start the 17th. The scuffling righthander got through the 17th with the aid of a nifty 5-3 double play turned by Alex Cora and he sailed through the 18th in 1-2-3 fashion.