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Remember how I was wondering what would happen to our next Red Sox game, scheduled for Friday (last night)? Well, Despite the threat of thunerstorms (which never materialized in boston, although it had been raining fairly hard for half an hour or so when we left Gloucester), we got to the game, and I'd say that .

A variety of factors conspired to make us arrive a few minutes late, so that we entered the park as the concourse TV screens were showing the third Marlins batter singling in a run. Shortly after I settled into my seat, and while John was coming down the aisle from the men's room, a double play ended the top of the first. Our late arrival had prevented us from doing anything about food, so we decided to wait until after the Red Sox' first to deal with something to eat.

Well.

50 minutes later, we were once again able to address the question of food. During that time, the Sox had batted around twice and scored 14 runs (tying the American League record), 10 of them before the first out was recorded (setting a new major league record). By the time that first out came, the Marlins were on their third pitcher. Johnny Damon had a double, a triple, and a single, on the last of which Bill Mueller took pity on the Marlins and tried futilely to score from second, making the third out at the plate.

And that was just the first inning.

When the first inning takes an hour, you know that it's not going to be a two-hour game. Still, it was a little frustrating how the pitchers for both sides managed to drag out innings (the top of the 4th was the only 1-2-3 inning in the entire game), walking people, batters fouling off what seemed like an exceptional number of two-strike pitches, etc. After the 5th, the Sox seemed to be "auditioning" various relievers who are likely candidates to be sent down when the several pitchers currently on the disabled list are activated, and most of them did their best to demonstrate how well-qualified they are to be the first to go. Oh, and the Sox scored in every inning except the 6th, although they never came close to matching the first (fortunately).

The only real drama (of a rather disturbing kind) came in the bottom of the 7th, when a line drive off the bat of Todd Walker bounced off the head of Kevin Olsen, the Marlins pitcher, and landed over by the third-base dugout. Olsen lay on the ground for nine minutes while medical personnel attended to him, eventually loading him onto a collapsible stretcher and wheeling him off the field. We later learned that he was not seriously hurt (the ball hit him just behind the ear), and was conscious and capable of movement the whole time he was down (which was not apparent from our seats, as he was surrounded by doctors, trainers, and teammates). Everyone hates to see this kind of thing; it's amazing how quickly about 20,000 people (a bunch of the original 34.000+ had left by this point) can get almost completely silent.

As if that weren't enough. in the next inning David Ortiz (who had doubled, homered, and singled) was hit in the knee by a pitch, and went down for a couple of minutes. He turned out to be all right, and stayed in the game, but the plate umpire must have warned the benches, because when Red Sox pitcher Hector Almonte threw too close to Marlins batter Andy Fox in the 9th, he was immediately thrown out of the game. Both benches and both bullpens then emptied, whereupon all the players stood around on the field as though wondering what they were supposed to do next; it was one of the strangest "bench-clearing" incidents I've ever seen. Eventually the game was resumed, and finally ended.

We probably wouldn't have stayed for the whole thing, but we wanted to see if Damon would hit a homer to complete his cycle. (He didn't, having to content himself with two more singles to go 5 for 7).

Final score: Red Sox 25, Marlins 8. Time of game: 4 hours, 7 minutes. This is not the record for a 9-inning game; it's not even the loingest 9-inning game we've ever iattended, which was a 4:11 game between the Red Sox and the White Sox in the early '90s (a record at the time, eclipsed later that season, I believe). And it's far from the longest game we've ever sat through (18 innings in May of 2001, not likely to be exceeded).

Still, we didn't get home until about 1:00 AM. We slept rather late this morning.