In the last few innings of Game Six of the 2011 World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals looked deader than some officially declared extinct species.
You knew the Cardinals weren’t coming back when the Rangers built their 6-4 lead on two home runs and extended it to 7-4. Even Tony La Russa looked depressed in the St. Louis dugout. Nobody really enjoys the “Wait till next year” theme originally popularized by the Brooklyn Dodgers, but the Cardinals were one strike away from watching Texas celebrate its first-ever World Series championship on St. Louis’ home field.
The Rangers led 7-4. Then it was 7-5. Bottom of the ninth inning, two outs, Redbirds fans and national TV announcers waving goodbye to Albert Pujols, just in case, and the Rangers can’t close it out. Next thing you know, it’s 7-7 and we move on to the 10th inning as the city of St. Louis exhales.
Now it’s Texas’ turn and Josh Hamilton, nursing his injuries, slashes a big hit and the Rangers rebound. They don’t want to go quietly into that good night, either. Texas wastes no time making it 9-7. Nice knowing you, St. Louis. Nice rally to save things in the ninth, but going into the 10th it is exactly the same circumstance. Wouldn’t you know it, the Cardinals come back again to make it 9-9 thanks to Lance “The Assassin” Berkman. Remarkable.
Suddenly, we have moved from baseball game/sporting event to Eugene O’Neill Broadway drama. The Cardinals were taking hits off of oxygen tanks in the ninth inning and the 10th inning and by the 11th, they have used up all of their position players. If he wants to pinch-hit, La Russa must send up one pitcher to bat for another pitcher. The phrase “all hands on deck,” applies.
At this point the Rangers have won the game at least twice. But the Cardinals are like Dracula. You’ve got to put a stake through their hearts to make sure they are dead. By now, too, everyone who is still awake and watching in can’t go to bed. They can’t walk out on this show. They have got to stay to the end even if it runs until 5 a.m. and at the rate the comebacks are coming it may well.
Then it ends. Like sudden death in hockey or football, in the home half of the 11th inning a walk-off home run wrecks Texas’ night. David Freese, who had a .037 Q rating outside of St. Louis before the playoffs, hits a home that was last seen flying over the Arch into the Mississippi River or something. They may hang Freese in effigy in the Lone Star State, but the Cardinals are all over him as he crosses home plate, giving one man more hugs and kisses than he is likely to get from a girlfriend or wife in the next five years, Valentine’s Day holidays included.
From the announcers in the booth, to the bleary-eyed at work (the game ended about 12:45 a.m. eastern time), to talk-show radio hosts, the buzz is that this was an instant classic of a game. Instead of Texas taking the trophy home on the range with a 4-2 Series victory, the charmed Cardinals pull even at 3-3 and offer America a seventh game Friday night.
The circumstances remind me of 1975 when the Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine produced one of the most memorable Series of all time and Carlton Fisk waved his long fly ball at Fenway Park into fair territory to end Game Six in the bottom of the 12th inning and force a Game Seven. And Game Seven in St. Louis is what awaited us less than 24 hours later this time.
Somebody had to win.