Every now and then the superiority of baseball over other team pastimes hits you in the face.

Or, at least, the ears.

The bottom of the ninth inning of Friday night’s Nationals/Phillies game did just that for anybody listening on the Nats radio network.

The underdog Nationals entered the inning down two runs, then everything just started going their way, and the giddiness among Nats fans just kept building and building.

By the time Ryan Zimmerman came to the plate with the bases loaded and the rain-delayed game all tied up, a Nats win over the overdog Phillies seemed like destiny.

And Zimmerman, who’s got an aura of destiny about him, too, delivered a game-ending grand slam that you just knew was coming.

Play-by-play man Charlie Slowes immortalized it all with a home run call for the ages: “Swing and a long one! Deep left field! Way back! It is gone! Goodbye! Goodnight!” (Trust me: It’s better when you hear it.)

An inning like that gives you the kind of prolonged excitement as a fan that the, as Red Smith used to call them, “back and forth sports,” where a team’s offensive successes are usually immediately followed by the other team taking over possession of the ball, cannot provide.

Am I wrong?