I tuned in yesterday evening (around 6:15) to watch Atlanta vs Houston. Everything was fine, cruising along to what looked like an Atlanta victory. Then something strange happened.
Houston came back from 6-1 down to tie it up on what could (should, really) have been the last batter of the game. So, they played on. And on. And on.
There's no clock in baseball; the game goes on until one team or the other has a lead at the end of the inning. Although Americans understand this fact from a young age, this is not the way any major sport in Europe is played. What should have been a 2'30" or 2'45" affair just got longer and longer. At one point the announcer remarked that it was 2 and a half hours since the home run that had tied the game. "Good God", I thought to myself. Around the fifteenth inning I thought that they should "break for tea", just like they do in cricket.
Finally, another Houston home run in the 18th inning ended the game. It was just around midnight. Three hours of "time added on" if you like. And, all I could think about was that I was really disappointed that NASN wasn't showing the next game (NY vs Anaheim) at 12:30.
