On this day in NY Mets history: Phillies, USA USA, almost 5 hours of baseball

May 1, 2011, had the New York Mets wrapping up their series against the Philadelphia Phillies down in the City of Brotherly Love. The Mets were headed toward a lost season while the Phillies were about to set a franchise record for wins. One moment stood out most from this game. It had nothing to do with baseball and was a decade in the making.

In the top of the 9th inning tied 1-1, chants of “USA! USA! Broke out at Citizens Bank Ballpark. It was 2011. A flag-bearing patriot storming the field might’ve been the logical cause. As a society, we weren’t yet glued to our phones 24/7 like we are today.

There’s a first for everything. Four years before the news of Wilmer Flores getting traded to the Milwaukee Brewers was revealed mid-game which led to his tears on the field, the sports world had one of, if not the first, moments where social media and immediate access to information invaded a game.

This Mets-Phillies game is remembered for something else than the wildness of what happened on the field

The chants were regarding the news that Osama Bin Laden had been assassinated. For a change, Mets and Phillies fans were united. A documentary on the moment was created in what felt like a first.

Two decades earlier, the death of John Lennon was announced during the broadcast of an NFL game. It was 1980 so fans didn’t have any idea of what was happening outside of the Monday Night Football game they had in front of them.

But back to that Mets game. It was the ninth inning and the game was hardly over with. Both teams stranded a pair of runners on base in the ninth. This one was going into extras. Another sign of the times, extra innings would not begin with a runner already on second base.

The Mets and Phillies played a 4 hour and 44 minute game lasting 14 innings. A two-out Ronny Paulino double broke the tie. On a memorable evening that began after 8pm when MLB could still get away with broadcasts beginning this late, a nail-biting conclusion overshadowed by an even more momentous event in American history.

Mets starter Chris Young quietly tossed 7 shutout innings with Jason Isringhausen getting charged with the one run against the Mets when reliever Tim Byrdak blew the save against the one batter he faced.

There might not be a more 2011 baseball game out there. It lasted too long, started too late, featured a pitcher on both teams facing one better and exiting, and all of us were stunned at how fast information could now travel.