The greatest game ever played

We all like to tell fish stories. But the Rosalind Athletics don’t have to lie. They won the PBL title, with the finale being the greatest game ever played.

Two days. Sixteen innings. Seventeen runs. Endless lead changes one night followed by a scoreless standstill the next.

When Rosalind entered the league they wanted competition every night. Yeah they wanted reduced travel, but at the end of the day, trucking out to god knows where Alberta once a week with nine guys and crushing them 10-0 wasn’t doing it for them. No offence BRBL. Heisler, Spring Lake and now Provost are the exception not the rule.

Just making the playoffs was an adventure. A mid-season slip-up to the Camrose Roadrunners didn’t seem to phase the veteran squad looking to make their eighth straight final in two different leagues.

Another playoff race down to the wire and into the same foe as last year set the stage. This time, the veteran squad wasn’t going to let Ryley run them out of gas. They dispatched the best regular season team in two straight games and watched as Armena snuck past Beaumont yet again, to set up a rematch of last year’s finale.

When game one went as planned, it was all set up for a Rosalind celebration. But the bats once again went quiet and questions arose if this was once again, a firing-blanks-final that many in the hamlet had grown accustom to.

When game three began, a quick start by the Royals was overcome and the long ball took off. Lead changes galore. The A’s had it in their grasps multiple times. Then the Royals. Then the A’s.

Darkness.

Unbelievable. You couldn’t write this up. This was… the greatest game ever played. Or so we thought.

Wednesday began and just when you thought it couldn’t get any crazier it did. Seven more innings. This time, not offence, but defence and pitching being supreme until finally – on a Brayden Benson single – the lead was back.

Ryan Yuha, spinning a gem gave up a single. And here we go again. But then, there it was. Two strikeouts. A Rosalind championship. Grandkids. Cousins. Camrose County visitors and everyone for generations will remember the night. The night the greatest game – over two days – ended.

And the Rosalind Athletics, for the first time in PBL history, are champions.

Congratulation boys. We’ll be talking about this one for decades. Celebrate. Enjoy. And of course, look out next year.

Posted on August 11, 2016 by Jason Buzzell