#TBT: Bucs pull off greatest extra-inning comeback

Maybe it made the most sense to just listen to the prescient and perfect words of the legend behind the broadcast.

Harry Caray was in the midst of his usual brilliant brand of baseball storytelling in the booth at Three Rivers Stadium on that night 25 years ago today. He had already seen enough freaky stuff on the field between his Chicago Cubs and the Pittsburgh Pirates to offer one more reminder that you just can’t predict the Grand Old Game.

Or maybe sometimes you can.

It was a chilly, rain-soaked early-season game in which the Pirates had already rallied from a 7-2 deficit to tie the score in the ninth, and then the Cubs scored five in the top of the 11th to make it 12-7, with a grand slam by future Hall of Famer Andre Dawson the biggest blow, the one that Caray said “put the game away.”

Things had quieted down in Steel City, the day’s fight for the home nine generally believed to be squelched, but Cubs reliever Heathcliff Slocumb did exactly what you don’t want to do: He walked the leadoff man, Jose Lind, to open the bottom of the 11th.

Enter Caray, who uttered the words, “Well, you never know,” and, well, now we do know: What ensued was the greatest extra-inning comeback in Major League history and a perfect #ThrowbackThursday moment we look back on with smiles (yes, even Cubs fans) a quarter-century later.

“We were down five runs? Twice?” a bewildered, 26-year-old Bucs outfielder named Barry Bonds told The Associated Press in the giddy aftermath of an absurd 13-12 victory.

“It happened so fast, I didn’t realize it.”

Indeed it did, even in a game that ended up lasting a not-so-tidy four hours and 10 minutes. Here’s how it went down:

After Slocumb walked Lind, he gave up a single to Curtis Wilkerson, then a single to Orlando Merced. Now Caray, already possibly sensing bad vibes, let out a preemptively sullen “Holy cow.”

The Chicago Tribune described the moment thusly: “The hits loaded the bases and brought [Cubs manager Don] Zimmer to the mound on a dead run. He called on [Mike] Bielecki, [the next] night’s starter. It didn’t work.”

Caray already had serious lamentation brewing in …

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