Oh, Nelly.

First off, the win-probability fangraph from last night is just ridiculous.

Anyway, less than five minutes after the game ended, a friend of mine texted me the following:

amazing. too bad game 7 will probably be a huge letdown.

In one sense, that’s almost certainly true. It’s hard to imagine tonight’s game topping last night. But the implicit thrust — that game seven would probably be a poor game — didn’t strike me as correct. Thinking back, my intuition was that most of the game sevens I could remember were actually pretty good.

SportsCenter is also running a piece right now talking about how great game 6s have been historically, relatively to game 7s. They show 1975 (carbo homer, fisk homer), 1986 (Schiraldi/Stanley/Buckner), 1991 (Puckett), 1992 (Joe Carter), and of course last night. But game 7 was pretty darn good in 1975 and 1986, and in 1991 game seven was absolutely better than game 6. So the piece struck me as kind of hollow.

Here are all the World Series game sevens since I was old enough to remember them:

1985: Royals 11, Cardinals 0. Not an exciting game. But it does include the ejection of Whitey Herzog, who allegedly told Don Denkinger “We wouldn’t be here if you didn’t fuck up the call last night,” in reference to the possibly-worst missed call of all time in game 6, to which Denkinger allegedly responded,” We wouldn’t be here if your team wasn’t hitting .120.” Awesome.

1986: Mets 8, Red Sox 5. I wasn’t alive for game seven in ’75, but I have to think this was the most highly-anticipated game seven of all-time, especially when you throw in the rain-out day (although that was true in ’75 as well). And it delivered. McNamara going with Hurst instead of Oil Can, followed later by Oil Can being too hungover to pitch in relief when the barn was on fire; the Sox jumping out to a 3-run lead, the Mets pounding Schiraldi again in the 7th; Strawberry’s towering homer (and slow-as-molasses trot around the bases) in the 8th. Great game.

1987: Twins 4, Cardinals 2. Somewhat marred by a pile of missed calls, this was still a very good game. The Cardinals got to Viola early, but he settled down nicely. Vince Coleman threw two Twins out at the plate to keep things close.

1991: Twins 1, Braves 0. Jack Morris refuses to come out and goes 10 innings for the shutout, with Smoltz et. al getting a 9-inning shutout of their own, before Gene Larkin delivered the walk-off hit to win it. Probably the greatest game in my lifetime, and definitely one of the most underrated.

1997: Marlins 3, Indians 2. A fantastic game and a fantastic finish. Alomar cut down at the plate trying to get an insurance run in the top of the 9th. The Marlins get to Mesa in the bottom of the ninth for the tying run. I think the single-most exciting thing that can happen in a baseball game is when the visiting team has to intentionally walk the bases loaded and then bring the infield and outfield in. The Indians had to do that in the 11th inning of game 7 of the world series! They cut a guy down at home for a second out, but then Renteria slaps in the winning run.

2001: Diamondbacks 3, Yankees 2. A classic. Clemens and Schilling locked in a duel for seven innings. Brenley brings in Randy Johnson (who had started game 6) in relief mid-8th. Mariano Rivera, greatest closer of all time, can’t save a 2-1 lead and the Diamondbacks walk off.

2002: Angels 4, Giants 1. Not a great game, but high drama right to the end. Percival put two runners on the 9th, bringing the tying run to the plate. Also, a great outing for a rookie John Lackey.

So that’s a pretty good track record. Not that it can predict anything.

Finally, I still have no idea how Sunday night regular season NFL games draw higher ratings than World Series games. Mind boggling. And I won’t entertain any nonsense about baseball being boring. If that’s your position, you need to: (a) re-evaluate which sport involves more standing around doing nothing; and (b)  drop football and start watching rugby. As I wrote after the last day of the regular season, baseball drama is unlike any other kind of sports drama. And post-season baseball drama is even more unique. It’s not the most heart-stopping (that would be overtime playoff hockey, in my mind), but it’s the most agonizing and the most personal.

Enjoy the game tonight, everyone!