Like Kissing Your Sister: Cubs-Pirates First MLB Tie in More Than a Decade

The same week that fans in Miami learned that there is indeed crying in baseball fans in Pittsburgh learned that there are ties in baseball, too.

Major League Baseball witnessed its first tie in over a decade on Thursday night. The Pirates and Cubs played to a 1-1 stalemate.

A downpour caused a delay of nearly ninety minutes. With no end in sight, the umps called the game. With Pittsburgh eliminated from the postseason and the Cubs already controlling the top NL seed, continuing the contest struck all concerned as pointless.

No pitcher gets the win, no pitcher gets the loss, and, one imagines, no two pitchers get the tie. And fans don’t receive refunds, either. It’s an official game, even though nobody won and nobody lost. For rotisserie baseball fanatics and the backs of baseball cards, the stats do count. Wilson Contreras, 2-for-2 with a run, appreciates this. The rest of the position players, who combined for just four more hits between them, do not.

Tonight’s game has been officially suspended & will not be made up.

MLB has deemed it a tied game. All stats from tonight will count. pic.twitter.com/YmIOsnyaxW

— Pirates (@Pirates) September 30, 2016

Our last tie was 8/24/1998 vs. Cardinals.

The last tie in MLB: 6/30/2005 Houston at Cincy pic.twitter.com/KkD0puexV7

— Pirates (@Pirates) September 30, 2016

Revised:
Due to MLB making tonight’s game an official game & calling it a tie, tix are not eligible for exchange
Apologies for the confusion

— Pirates (@Pirates) September 30, 2016

The outcome means the Pirates must win out to finish above .500 and the Cubs pulled off the rare feat of registering a tie during a 100-plus-win season.

Clint Hurdle, who played in the majors for a decade after debuting in 1977 and has coached continuously since 1997, noted that all of his experience competing and coaching in the big leagues did not, before Thursday night, include a tie.

“A tie, I don’t remember every being involved in one at the major league level,” Pittsburgh’s manager told reporters. “It’s definitely something different.”