Baseball on July 4th: 5 memorable moments
July 4, 1985 – Greatest Game Ever Played?
Because we’re touching on memorable moments as well as performances, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include what many consider to the be the greatest baseball game ever played – the July 4, 1985 game between the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves.
Yes, some consider game 7 of the 1960 World Series the greatest, while others consider it the game where Bobby Thomson hit a game winning home run for the New York Giants in 1951 to defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers – best known as the Shot Heard ‘Round The World. It’s hard for me to nail down the best, and there are certainly more games that can be considered that can be counted, but as a Braves fan I lean toward July 4, 1985 game – best know as The Rick Camp Game. That’s fitting today because of the date it was played on.
Most probably don’t think of the Rick Camp Game as the greatest, but the wackiest. In fact, that’s exactly how Atlanta Braves’ announcer John Sterling referred to it, yelling after the affair that it was one of the…
"wackiest, wildest, most improbable game in history!"
The Wacky Details
No play-by-play is necessary here, but just a few highlights to help the uninitiated know what Sterling meant.
It was expected that there would be a pitching duel between Rick Mahler of the Braves and Dwight Gooden of the Mets, but neither pitcher went past the fourth inning.
A long rain delayed had fans and players miffed, but the Mets would come out after the delay to eventually build a 7-4 lead as the two teams headed toward the bottom of the 8th inning. The Braves overcame that deficit with four runs of their own in the bottom of the inning to take a 1 run lead, 8-7, off a double by fan favorite, Dale Murphy.
The Mets would tie the game in the 9th, and it would remain tied until the top of the 13th inning when the Mets took the lead, only to allow the Braves to tie it again in the bottom of that very same inning. The tie would again continue until the 18th inning when the Mets would again take a single run lead.
The came one of the greatest nights in Rick Camp‘s career, one of the most unexpected nights for any player or fan in those days, and a moment that will live in infamy! Rick Camp, a pitcher for the Atlanta Braves, and a career .060 hitter, would come into the game in the bottom of the 18th inning (only because the Braves had no other position players at that point in the game), and absolutely wreak havoc with an 0-2 fastball and go yard for the first time in his career, tying the game in the 18th inning!
I remember being totally flabbergasted, elated, shocked, and famoozled all at the same time watching that game!
The Mets got 28 hits in that game, and the Braves got 18, but both teams used a total of seven pitchers, including Roger McDowell (pitched then for the Mets, but is the current pitching coach for the Atlanta Braves).
The Rick Camp game, which some argue is the wackiest, and I argue is one of the best, didn’t end that night until 3:55am, over six hours after it started, including the lengthy rain delay. I was just happy I didn’t have to go to college classes the next day. Wow!