This is a Baseball Blog, But This is Not a Baseball Post

What a game.

I've heard chatter from some corners that it was the best football game of all time. I'm not really qualified to make that call, but what's apparent to me is that anybody saying that probably doesn't watch the CFL, because in my estimation, the best game to have been played during my lifetime was the 1989 Grey Cup. But Super Bowl XLII was a close second, and the fourth quarter may have been the single greatest quarter of football I've ever seen.

Eli Manning had no right - no right - to elude that sack. And David Tyree (who the hell is David Tyree?) made a circus catch with his head on a third and 5 play that was so pivotol and so exciting that it deserves one of those nicknames - The Scramble? The Catch II? - and suddenly, the Pats' march toward utter perfection, which seemed to be only a hairsbreadth away from completion after Brady engineered that Q4 scoring drive, was in doubt.

Deadspin impresario Will Leitch, who spends his days lording over an army of too-clever wiseasses, moonlights as a columnist (sorry, blogger) for The Old Gray Lady, and he's got a hell of a piece about the game (read it here, though registration might be required). It's a terrific piece of sportswriting, though it's nearly outdone by one of the commenters (comment #5, by one William Rivers Pitt).

As Leitch says, "It was sports at its absolute best: Random, unimaginable, insane." It was perfect because it defied the script we were all but certain had been written in stone. I don't deny the historic nature of the Patriots' season; it was one for the ages. But the story needed a special ending, and on Sunday night, in Glendale, AZ, in front of the world, it got one.