Watched this entire game when I was 18 years old. Great game. I watched it on WOR-TV Channel 9. I couldn't believe Rick Camp's homerun. It stunned me. It stuns me today. Probably the greatest regular season game I have ever watched. And I am 57 years old. I have watched a lot of baseball.
Maybe the wildest game ever played. Didn't end till 3:55 AM on July 5. The 19 innings and score was wild enough but there were also 3 separate rain delays that made the game seem like it went on forever.
Missed a ton of games in the '80s, serving aboard a submarine, and this was one of them. I can't thank you enough for posting this. Lifelong Mets fan, but somewhere around the 14th I started pulling for either team...doesn't matter who it is, you gotta admire a never-say-die attitude.
If the game lasted 2 more hours WSB 750 would have disappeared from the radio except in most of Georgia, parts of Tennessee, parts of South Carolina and parts of Alabama.
I know he wasn't on the team at the time until the next year (as GM), but all that was missing was Bobby Cox getting thrown out. Can't have a Braves game this crazy without him getting thrown out.
I remember this game. That summer I had graduated high school and would be off to college in the fall. My folks were out that night I had gone to McD’s for food then watched the game I stayed up late then went to bed I listened to some of the game in the radio then to bed. When I woke up I learned the final score later that morning. What a crazy game
And the crazy thing about that was that was the second 2-out, 2-strike game-tying HR he allowed in extra innings. He also gave up Terry Harper's game-tying HR that hit the middle of the foul screen in the 13th that tied it at 10. And yet, despite giving up TWO 2-out, 2-strike game-tying HRs in extra innings, Gorman was still the winning pitcher.
Gorman was gassed, he threw 6 innings of relief, his fastball was nothing by then, and Camp got lucky hitting it out. Camp only got 3 hits that year, his last in the majors.
That was a terrible call, that ball was low and outside & Tata didn't shy away at all, he actually followed Strawberry who was walking away when he threw him out. Now Darryl may have said a magic word but Tata seemed to instigate that there and at 3 am tempers were already short.
I was there for the whole thing. Up a bit, behind 3rd base. Five A.M. fireworks or whenever it was. Then had to drive back to Alabama. It would be nice for an upload of the original TBS broadcast without all the ESPN graphics. Also, Steve Shields 43, was my PE teacher in high school.
When we got Bruce Sutter, the town went wild, the team was practically printing World Series tickets already. But the Cards must've known Sutter was starting to lose it. He blew this game, and quite a few more for the Braves, sadly. I think the team is STILL paying him, like Bobby Bonilla & the Mets
Nope...Sutter's contract was fulfilled sometime in the late '90s or early 2000's. Bruce was "damaged goods" when he got to the Braves due to wear and tear on his arm from the infamous "splitter" he threw. Met him in a cigar store I frequented in Marietta sometime around 1996. Turns out he was a regular customer at that tobacconist too. The store manager introduced us and he was both shy and polite. I didn't bother him with questions or reminiscences and I think he appreciated that. The big difference between the two of us...I purchased a few $5 smokes while Bruce purchased a couple of $300 boxes of Arturo Fuentes.
Brandon Gaudin has has really grown on me. I was skeptical at first, and took a minute to get used to hearing the voice of madden call my Braves games. Now I love his calls. I find myself shouting FROZEN PIZZA quite a bit 😂
that summer i was getting ready for my senior year of high school. i watched the game from start to finish. 1985 mets were one of the best teams ever not to win their division. they had 99 wins. plus being hammered with injuries the whole season. that is when only two teams from each league, made the playoffs.
One of the longest games in baseball history where the Mets beat the Braves by the score of 16-13 in 19 innings which had set an all-time record for the most innings. It ended with a fireworks show at 3:34:31 which was begun before 4 AM, just an hour before sunrise. Apologies for the tape damage during the fireworks. The time of the game was a staggering 6 hours.
25:15 That kis is 40 now and his dad is 63. I was 10 the day this game was played and would have fallen asleep listening to TBS or WSB. DAMN I WANT A TIME MACHINE
Love hearing Skip and Pete again. I much prefer reruns of teams and players who played for the love glory, than the propaganda they pass off as baseball today.
I see Johnny Sain in the Braves dugout laughing after the Rick Camp home run. Sain had been with the Braves when they were in Boston and was one of their aces when they won the NL pennant in 1948, so I guess he'd seen just about everything in baseball by this time, and even he's gassed about the turn of events.
It's even crazy that after the Mets went ahead by five runs in the top of the nineteenth inning the Braves still scored two runs in the bottom of the nineteenth and Camp came up to bat for the second time as the tying run.
Rick Camp's life didn't go well after this year.... He wasn't resigned for 1986, then ended up going to prison for embezzling money from a mental health facility in Augusta and then died at the age of 59
I remember watching this game and being unable to stay awake for all of it. I thought the Mets were about to close it out and with two outs and an 0-2 count to Rick Camp in the 18th inning the unthinkable happened. Ralph Kiner (Mets announcer) said “My eyes don’t believe what they are seeing.” I missed everything after that and woke up to fireworks on the screen not knowing who won or how the runs were scored. Long Island sports fans are familiar with marathon games. Less than two years later in the NHL we had the Easter Epic (Islanders vs. Capitals in game 7 of the 1987 Patrick Division semifinals. The New York team won that game as well.
Rick Mahler is loved by all Atlanta natives who are 35 and older. Dale Murphy the same. The Braves were all guys you would have over for dinner back then and to me as a kid all seemed like family and the perfect for for each other. I loved them all even when they won 50 games. Murphy should be in the HOF but for 3 homeruns yet I have to look at Barry Bonds name on the all time list When everyone knows he hit a "second prime" at 40 years old which was after his decline in his mid thirties (and put on 20 or 30 lbs of muscle). Kick his ass out of baseball.
Braves' coaches (19th inning): "Aww screw it.. Keep Camp out there until he gets us 3 outs (both on the mound and at the plate) ... The team can watch fireworks and sleep in the box seats when the crowd goes home... We'll shower after we wake up."
They had no choice but let Camp hit as they were out of position players at that point in the game. I remember thinking the game would soon be over when he surprised the world with the homer. I woke up everyone in the house hollering.
You can hear the fireworks 🎆 🎇 begin while the commentator is going over the highlights haha. That's crazy. 4:15 in the morning! Must have been a lot of people who went to that game who called in "dead" to work a few hours later.
- Braves were forced to send Rick Camp up to bat in the 18th because they'd used all of their position players by that point in the game. The next inning Camp was on the mound and the Mets tacked on 5 runs and finally won this game in the 19th.
The Braves were having trouble putting butts in the seats and there was no way they were gonna call that game and lose the revenue by issuing rain-checks for their biggest crowd of the season.
And they stil had the fireworks. Thats when we were still America.. unlike today where they would have cancelled it because someones would have been offended.
