Last night’s other American League Divisional Series showdown, Game One between the Oakland A’s and the Boston Red Sox, turned into a four-and-a-half hour epic, won by the A’s in the 12th inning. The game started at 10 PM EST. I was out at a bar with friends and came home around midnight to watch on the TiVo. Blazing through some parts, meandering through others, I finally caught up to the live action close to 2 AM, and at the end of the 11th inning, decided to record the rest as well, which I watched with my morning coffee.

The A’s ended up winning the game 5-4 in the 12th in unlikely fashion: a two-out, bases-loaded bunt by catcher Ramon Hernandez. With third baseman Bill Mueller playing back, the Sox never had a chance at a play. The irony of the Beaneball A’s winning the ballgame on a surprise little-ball tactic will probably be talked about for the rest of the postseason should the A’s win this series.

It was only the first game of the series, but if you’re a Yankees or a Twins fan, you had to like some of the stuff that went on here:

• Sox starter Pedro Martinez emptying the tank, throwing 130 pitches and being touched for three runs. Less than sharp, Pedro walked four and struck out three.

• A’s starter Tim Hudson laboring through his last inning as well, and then watching Ricardo Rincon cough up the lead as he was greeted by Todd Walker’s second home run of the game.

• Sox reliever Byung-Hyun Kim surrendering the tying run with two outs in the ninth, on Erubiel Durazo’s second huge hit of the ballgame.

• Both bullpen struggling to throw strikes: only 51 out of 93 pitches for the Sox, 54 out of 106 for the A’s. Granted that included four intentional walks. Remove those and it’s still 105 strikes out of 183 pitches for the two teams, not exactly an impressive ratio. At one point it looked as though A’s phenom Rich Harden might turn into the next Rick Ankiel he was so wild.

• A’s closer Keith Foulke tossing 3 innings and throwing 51 pitches.

• Sox starter Derek Lowe, slated for Game Three on Saturday, throwing nearly two innings and giving up the game’s winning run.

• The Sox suffering a potentially demoralizing defeat, being outwitted on a heads-up play by Hernandez

• The two teams having to play again a mere 13 hours later.

It was a helluva ballgame, but that 10 PM start time was just ridiculous, eliminating all but the insomniacs, psychotics, and the less-than-fully employed. Hmmmm, I resemble those epithets.

In the real schadenfreude sweepstakes though, it’s tough to beat Rush Limbaugh’s double whammy of fallout from racist comments and investigation into his illegal pill-popping. Big fat idiots in glass houses…