“I don’t believe what I just saw.”
Jack Buck, 1988
The Muhammed Ali of baseball games.
The greatest.
The greatest game of all-time.
Hands down.
Yes, I realize you can’t just throw out that statement.
But I just did.
Game 6 of the 2011 World Series is the greatest baseball game in the history of our national pastime.
Period.
How do you define great?
Pick One:
1great adj \ˈgrāt
1 notably large in size
2 large in number or measure
3 remarkable in magnitude, degree, or effectiveness
4 full of emotion
They all fit.
I’m far from a baseball historian.
But I know my stuff.
For example, did you know the first baseball game was played on April 22, 1876.
True.
Wikipedia says so.
That day a rookie named Jamie Moyer beat the Cincinnati Red Stockings, 2.5-1.
The rules were a little different then.
But it was baseball.
The same game we love today.
Over the next 135 years, thousands...
tens of thousands...
hundreds of thousands of games have been played.
Games with everything.
293 games with a cycle.
272 no-hitters.
20 Perfect Games.
Good games.
Bad games.
Long games.
Short games.
But no baseball game has ever been as great as what we saw on Thursday night.
Just when you thought it couldn’t take another twist.
It twisted again.
Like Chubby Checker.
This game had it all.
EVERYTHING.
Good pitching. Bad pitching.
Good hitting. Great hitting.
Good defense. Atrocious defense.
You thought Silence of the Lambs was hard to watch.
Try watching Matt Holliday play left field.
Downright scary.
Now when I say this game was the greatest game.
I’m talking greatest game.
Not greatest moment.
Everyone knows the greatest moment in baseball history is Kirk Gibson.
Circa 1988.
The moment that inspired “I don’t believe what I just saw.”
But if Jack Buck was still with us, he wouldn’t believe what his son Joe saw at the new Busch Stadium on Thursday night.
This game went 11 innings.
At least one run in 10 of those.
19 runs in all.
28 hits.
6 homers.
42 players used.
15 players threw a pitch.
16 had a hit.
14 scored a run.
And four made an error.
In fact, Michael Young of Texas made two.
The game was tied five times.
The second inning. Fourth inning. Sixth inning. Ninth inning and Tenth Inning.
And Texas broke the tie every time.
Well every time except one time.
The last time.
The Rangers got back-to-back homers to take the lead in the seventh inning.
Great moment.
The Cardinals battled back in the bottom of the ninth.
To tie the game.
Another great moment.
Down to their final strike, St. Louis native David Freese hit an opposite-field fly ball to right field.
Had the Rangers right-fielder Nelson Cruz made the catch.
A tough catch.
That would’ve been an historic moment.
And it would’ve closed a great game.
And a great series.
But he didn’t.
And when the ball bounced off the padding of that right field wall, a pair of Cardinals circled the bases to tie the game at 7.
And send it into extra innings.
Baseball’s version of sudden death overtime.
That tie would last exactly minutes.
That’s because in the top of the 10th inning, Josh Hamilton sent a ball over that same right field wall.
Over that wall.
Typical Texas.
Anything you can do I can do better.
A two-run homer.
9-7 Rangers.
And another great moment.
Game over?
Game not over!
In the bottom of that inning, the Cardinals battled back.
Again.
Are you starting to believe me about this greatest game thing?
Down 9-8, the Cardinals had two on with two out.
And two strikes.
That’s what Vin Scully calls the deuces wild.
Well wild it was when Lance Berkman singled to center scoring the tying run.
Again.
9-9.
Let’s go to the 11th.
For the cherry on top.
Enter Freese.
A 28-year old journeyman by baseball’s standards.
A guy who quit the game after high school.
A guy who had just 15 major league homers entering this post-season.
A guy who will never have to buy another Budweiser in his hometown of St. Louis.
Freese hit a high-flying home run to deep center field to give the Cardinals the unimaginable come-from-behind victory.
Setting up a winner-take-all game 7.
Capping the greatest game of baseball we have ever seen.
Even if we couldn’t believe what we just saw.
1 comment:
Two things --
If Nelson Cruz makes that catch, it's better than Willie Mays ... better than Dwight Clark ... it's simply the greatest catch of all time
Second -- Joe Buck's call "We'll see you tomorrow night" was so meaningful ... an ode to his father, who used those same words in 1991 Game 6 when Kirby Puckett homered to win it ... and an ode to St. Louis fans everywhere who listened to his father back when the game was great.
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