I went to the Wild Card Game. When James Shields threw the first pitch—a strike—the stadium erupted like I had never heard it before, and that was only strike one. The energy was electric, almost physical, as if the ghosts of thousands of Royals fans traversed the nether to also watch what would be one of the greatest baseball contests in recent memory with the living. I remember the crack of Salvador Perez’s bat, the absolute joy of tens of thousands screaming hoarse bellows of emotion as Christian Colon rounded to score the winning run.
That is, of course, an outlier of an experience, even when compared to normal playoff baseball, which is a blast.