21st Inning Stretch

25, 984 people were actually at Petco Park in San Diego for last night's game between the Padres and Rockies.

A few years from now, approximately 3 million people will claim they were there.

It was one of those games for the ages: 22 innings in 6:16. Not the longest game ever, but plenty long. A tough night for the hitters: final score 2-1, Rockies. Some pretty good hitters saw serious damage done to their batting averages. Colorado's Todd Helton and San Diego's Brian Giles each went 1-for-9. Feast your eyes on the boxscore for more numbers.

Tough enough for the players, many of whom went the distance (both catchers, Colorado's Yorvit Torrealba and San Diego's Josh Bard, put in the full 22 and will undoubtedly get the night off tonight).

But how about the fans? That's a long time in a hard plastic seat with your knees shoved into the back of the seat in front of you. That's a lot of bad ballpark music. That's 15 dry innings after they cut off the beer sales.

On the plus side, the Padres organization got into the absurd fun of it all, and staged a 7th inning stretch, a 14th inning stretch, and a 21st inning stretch. So at least the fans got a little exercise.