Tonight I was working late, and I watched most of this game at my office. When the Cardinals went out in the bottom of the 7th, they were down 7-4 with only six outs left. They only had three hits in the whole game. At this point I was absolutely certain Texas would win the Series, and would deserve to do so. But I like the Cardinals a lot -- I always have, ever since I grew up listening to Jack Buck on the radio. And I don't like the Rangers -- who are the main reason that we here in Washington didn't have a baseball team from 1972 to 2004. I really didn't want to watch the Rangers celebrating on the Cardinals' home field. So I got in the car and started to drive home.
About halfway through my drive, the old instinct started up again. After all, something amazing might be happening. I might miss it. So I checked the radio and found that in the bottom of the 8th, Allen Craig had hit a home run to make it 7-5, and that the Cardinals had the bases loaded with Rafael Furcal at the plate. He grounded out to end the inning, but now I was excited to see the 9th.
I got home just as St. Louis came to bat in the 9th. And then this game, which had been so sloppy (5 errors by both teams), turned into something out of a movie. Albert Pujols, the old hero in what may be his last season in St. Louis, gets a key double. David Freese, the kid who grew up in the St. Louis area, hits a game-tying triple with two outs in the ninth. Josh Hamilton, the wounded warrior for Texas, hits his first home run in 82 at bats to give the Rangers a 9-7 lead. The subs at the bottom of St. Louis's lineup battling to get on base and give the big guys a chance. Lance Berkman, the paunchy gray-bearded slugger, hitting a two-out single to tie the game again -- the first time any team had scored in the 8th, 9th, and 10th innings of a World Series game, and the first time any team had come from two runs down twice after the 8th inning of a World Series game. And then, incredibly, Freese -- the hometown hero -- sending everyone home happy with a titanic homer in the bottom of the 11th.
This is the stuff of legend.
Some people say that sports are "entertainment." But that's not really true. When you go see a play, or a movie, or a concert, every performer has a very good sense of what is about to happen. They've learned their lines -- they know their marks. But no one on that field tonight knew what would happen. They were trapped in the drama just as much as we were. Some of them grew into legendary figures tonight. Others will be remembered as goats. Some played both roles -- Freese had a terrible error earlier in the game, before his two late blasts changed his reputation. Watching these amazing athletes battle against that sort of drama -- this provides us with a sort of tension that is, whether one likes it or not, qualitatively different than the type of drama you'll see on stage.
Not everyone likes this sort of drama, and so not everyone likes sports. But if you like it, you can't find it anywhere else outside the sporting arena. In no other human endeavor can you watch human beings suffer such dramatic turns of fortune.
And that is why I'm sitting here at 1:32 A.M., still excited about what I saw.
Is there anything more to say about the game? I'm sure that sports radio will spend all day parsing the moves made by the various managers, and wondering whether this or that move could have worked differently. What I find interesting is that each manager has approached the Series with a different attitude, but each has gotten basically the same results. Ron Washington trusts his guys, and he has stuck with the people and the patterns who got Texas to the playoffs. LaRussa has been pushing buttons and making changes like a 13-year-old playing a tabletop game. And yet the outcomes have been almost identical:
1. St. Louis edged Texas 3-2 to take the first game
2. Texas stole Game 2 with two runs in the 9th for a 2-1 victory
3. St. Louis crushed Texas 16-7 in a slugfest
4. Texas got a dominating pitching performance for a 4-0 win in Game 4
5. Texas pitching frustrated the Cardinals again for a 4-2 win in Game 5
6. St. Louis stole Game 6 with comebacks in the 9th and 10th for a 10-9 victory
So each team has a come-from-behind victory (Game 2 for Texas, Game 6 for St. Louis). Each has also won a tight pitchers duel (Game 1 for St. Louis, Game 5 for Texas). And each has had one relatively easy win (Game 3 for St. Louis, Game 4 for Texas).
Given these facts, it's impossible to say that Washington has outsmarted LaRussa, or vice versa. All we can really say is that for these six games, the teams have been very evenly matched, and that no one can be certain as to what will happen in Game 7. In fact, some of us have to admit we couldn't even accurately predict what would happen in the last two innings of Game 6.
But then again, that is why we watch.
bravo.
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