CHICAGO -- Over the past six months, it felt like for all the good stuff there was during the 2018 regular season, we heard almost as much about the things in baseball that could be a little better.
But now it's October, and the Chicago Cubs and Colorado Rockies just reminded us once again why baseball is still great.
By the time Albert Almora Jr. struck out to end Colorado's 2-1, 13-inning, 4-hour, 55-minute thriller, Tuesday's National League wild-card classic had extended into Wednesday. Lists were circulating about the game being the longest ... everything. Longest postseason game in Wrigley Field history. Longest wild-card game in the seven years of that round. Longest win-or-go-home game ever.
"Well, this was a great one," Rockies manager Bud Black said. "I think this is a classic. I think this will go down as a Major League Baseball classic."
The game was indeed long, but it wasn't about quantity. For a game that saw so few runs scored, it was packed with countless details, any of which might have been spun off into a game story, or at least a sidebar. It was tense and terse, from stem to stern. It was the perfect way to kick off the 2018 postseason. It was the perfect opening act.
That's right: We've got a whole month of this ahead of us.