View From The Sofa: Phillies' drawn-out victory march built on catching and cat litter

Thanks to the weather, the World Series was looking at the least satisfying conclusion to a sporting event since the last time Messrs Duckworth and Lewis were rolled out. On Monday the Philadelphia Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays could both have done with wetsuits (or, even better, a stadium with a roof). Sliding into bases was akin to bog-snorkelling; in the stands the serried ranks of plastic macs billowed in the icy wind. It was all becoming extremely tedious, with delays every few minutes to redistribute the puddles and rebuild the pitchers' mound (with cat litter, according to Five's studio summariser, the oracular Josh Chetwynd).

As they entered the sixth inning it had reached the stage where, according to the rules, a call-off would mean a win for the team in the lead, so with the Phillies ahead 2-1 in runs and 3-1 in games (in a best-of-seven series), and the rain continuing to sheet down on Citizens Bank Park, it looked like it might mean a World Series victory without the final game being completed, bringing to mind some of cricket's least spectacular and least satisfying finishes. Officials were worried: the World Series could not be allowed to end like this.

Then the baseball gods smiled and at the top of the sixth inning the Rays' B J Upton slid in for the tying run. Officials breathed again: the game could be suspended with the scores level. The World Series lived on. "We have life," observed the Rays' left-fielder Carl Crawford.

In fact, strictly speaking, if a game is stopped mid-inning, the score should revert to the score at the top of the inning, which would have wiped out Upton's run. But Commissioner Bud Selig wasn't having any of that. He would never allow a World Series game to be decided in fewer than nine innings, he said, and stuff the rule book (which he had tucked under his arm).

Tuesday was also a washout, so Game Five resumed on Wednesday in freezing conditions – the players wore hoods that would have them ejected from any self-respecting shopping centre – as if the game had been in suspended animation for two days (it was delayed for another 30 minutes by Barack Obama's $6m infomercial on Fox). It was a unique situation. "Every pitch, every out, every play, is magnified in a situation like this," said the commentator Rick Sutcliffe, adding: "I've never seen a situation like this."

When the Phillies scored early on thanks to a dropped catch, a sense of inevitability loomed, though Five's anchorman Jonathan Gould beamed, "It couldn't get any more exciting than this." I'm not sure about that, but the resumed game served as a demonstration of the way baseball builds by small increments – getting on base, relying, perhaps, on singles and sacrifices from others to make your way round the diamond. Home runs are merely the icing on a very substantial cake. Just as bowling wins cricket matches, so pitching wins baseball games. Bad fielding can undo any heroics with the bat. Spectacular homers are all very well, but they're nothing without a rock-solid foundation of the simple things done well.

Also evident was the universal sporting truth that without a good defence, or indeed defense, you win nothing. Utterly crucial on Wednesday was Chase Utley's play at second base. With runners heading for first base and the home plate, he made as if to throw to first. This induced the Rays' third base coach to instruct his runner to carry on for a run, rather than stick on third. Then Utley whipped his shoulder round and threw to home. Man out, no run, Phillies still ahead, victory close at hand. The scorer of the winning run, Eric Bruntlett, a big, bearded bear, looked like something out of Deliverance – further proof of baseball's position as the quintessential all-American game.