Via Deadspin comes a story of the Class-A Clinton Lumber Kings finding themselves down 17-1 after five innings and coming back to win 20-17:
There’s never really a bad time to score 19 unanswered runs. But trailing 17-1 after five innings, the timing of the LumberKings—a Mariners affiliate—couldn’t have been much better. Six in the sixth, five each in the eighth and ninth, and three in 12th adds up to a comeback for the ages. And all somehow wrapped up in a tidy three hours and 28 minutes!
That’s pretty trippy — Deadspin links to the radio call of the game, which is a lot of fun — but I think this is pretty significant in the world of the Unwritten Rules too. After all, the next time someone gets huffy about someone trying to lay down a bunt for a hit or steal a base in a blowout, can we not point to this game and say that no lead is safe? I mean, sure, no big league team is likely to be quite the choke artists the Burlington Bees proved to be last night, but the old saying about how I’ll stop trying to win when you do seems to be the best policy, always.