Overtime great in hockey, not baseball

The Flyers won an exciting game in double overtime last night 4-3 (that God it didn’t go to a shootout). I have never been extremely interested in hockey because my dad never got me into it growing up. But I have always rooted for the Flyers, even after they burned us in 1998. What that game did for me was get me really excited about watching playoff hockey this year. I might even watch a few games that the Flyers aren’t in.

The way both teams approached the overtime last night was with desperate aggression. It was extremely fast paced and both teams left everything on the ice. In stark contrast, I saw a story online today about the Rockies/Padres going 22 innings, and it made me think about how the MLB handles the tie.

In my opinion, 9 innings should be enough for a team to win or lose a game. What is so wrong with having ties in baseball? The strain that extra innings puts on players, especially pitches (a total of 15 were used in the marathon mentioned above), gives the teams they are playing next an advantage of being more rested. There is a reason other sports allow ties or have a timed “sudden death” period.

As the Mets are coming in for a weekend series, I recall how many of their games have been decided in extra innings already this season. All I can do is watch and hope the games are decided in the first 9 innings. Because regardless of who has more runs after 22 innings that takes over 6 hours to decice, nobody really wins.