Baseball's Best Night Ever (How the 2011 Wild Card Race Produced the Greatest Finish in MLB History)

Any casual baseball fan knows the date. September 28, 2011, was the epic culmination of a 162-game season coming down to four hours of unforgettable chaos that spanned four different games in four different cities. In the budding age of Twitter and live wraparound coverage with the arrival of MLB Network, the events of September 28 came at a perfect time when fans across the country simultaneously experienced the completion of two historic comebacks in a matter of minutes.

The Atlanta Braves held an eight-game lead in the Wild Card standings to begin the final four weeks of the season, only to watch the Cardinals storm back and pull even before the final night of the regular season. In the American League, the Red Sox held a nine-game lead in September, a lead that was never before relinquished in the history of the sport, before the Rays rallied to tie them heading into September 28. It was a baseball fan's dream, but even the most creative and big-dreaming fanatics could not have imagined just how the playoff fates for each team would be determined. A 13-inning thriller in Atlanta led to the Braves completing their collapse and allowing the Cardinals to sneak into the postseason, while the Red Sox coughed up a lead with two outs in the ninth inning just moments before the Rays beat the Yankees on a walk-off home run in the 12th inning.

Baseball's Best Night Ever provides an in-depth look at the figures behind the wildest night our nation's pastime has ever seen, and the improbable heroes that etched their names into baseball history. There was Dan Johnson, who spent the previous season in Japan and hadn't logged a hit since April before hitting a game-tying home run for the Rays in the bottom of the ninth. Robert Andino, a fringe major leaguer, hit a walk-off single for the Orioles, the second game-winning hit he recorded against All-Star Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon in the span of one week. There were pitchers who faked their name and age to get to the majors. There were stars like Carl Crawford, who left the Rays for the Red Sox, only to help his former team complete a miracle (in more ways than one, thanks to his part in the left field wall at Tampa's Tropicana Field being lowered years before to eventually allow Evan Longoria's game-winning homer in the 12th clear the fence). The intersecting of narratives and career paths that led to the clashing of clutch hits and agonizing gaffes happening at once makes for a perfect story—one that has yet to be the subject of a book.

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