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| One strike away from the pennant http://www.testycopyeditors.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5529 |
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| Author: | jjmoney62 [ Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:52 pm ] |
| Post subject: | One strike away from the pennant |
I've got to say, I prefer a towering bomb of a home run off the menacing closer than a cheap poke over a short porch against a tiring starter. A stunning win by the Cards tonight. I love Fox's audio replay of the life getting instantly sucked out of the Astros' stadium. Mercy (as Hawk Harrelson would say). Mercy. |
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| Author: | Matthew Grieco [ Mon Oct 17, 2005 11:43 pm ] |
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I don't believe what I just saw. It wasn't just one of the most clutch hits in recent decades; it was a home run so magnificently high and deep that its very trajectory added to the force of the stomach punch every Astros fan surely felt. Wow. What a game is baseball. Wow. Niko, can you breathe? |
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| Author: | ndugan1 [ Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:12 am ] |
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I'm not sure I'm still seeing straight. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I felt just like those Astros fans in the 7th after that cheap shot to what Houston fans have dubbed the Crawford boxes by Berkman -- a hit that would have been a double off the wall in any other ballpark. At first, I was devastated and speechless. Then, I switched to "well, if we had to lose, this would be the team to lose to" mode. Then, something happened, and I just refused to accept it. I think it was when Thom Brenneman mentioned that if the Astros won, the last game at Busch Stadium would have already been played. I felt the crowd almost overtake the game in that last inning. I watched John Rodriguez and John Mabry strike out swinging, and realized why Astros officials kept the roof closed. I couldn't hear myself think, and I was at home. And then, the toughest player in the game showed why he's so tough. Yes, Pujols had an amazing at bat, but none of that happens without Eckstein's single. And I can't believe Edmonds laid off those pitches. By the grace of the baseball gods, I had the night off tonight. I was standing in my living room, rally cap and glove on, willing Eckstein and Edmonds to reach base. Right before he connected, I actually said to my TV, "Be the spoiler, Albert. Hit the crap out of this one." I knew it off the bat. It was the most awe-inspiring feeling watching that ball sail into the glass above the train tracks. I'm surprised the people who live above and below me didn't come knocking on my door, since I was screaming and jumping up and down like a maniac at 10:40 p.m. What a game. Two wins to go. |
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| Author: | wordygurdy [ Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:02 pm ] |
| Post subject: | |
I have to say, that was an amazing turn of momentum and another example of why baseball is such a great game. You think that--once Pujols launched his homer--maybe the Minute Maid Park staff was doing some furious removing of champagne from the Astros' locker room, taking down the protective plastic sheeting over the players' lockers and disassembling the camera platform that would have held Astros officials and Kenesaw Molehill Selig for the trophy presentation? |
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| Author: | Cthomas [ Tue Oct 18, 2005 7:41 pm ] |
| Post subject: | |
And did Fox change the "player of the game," who had just been named? (He was the Astro who had hit the homer two innings earlier.) |
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| Author: | PunkOnce [ Wed Oct 19, 2005 3:55 pm ] |
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I can't be the only person who finds the greatest outrage in that inning to be the walk to Edmonds. My new theory is that relievers subconsciously want to pitch in the most harrowing circumstances possible -- even if they have to fabricate them from scratch. They just don't get enough love for producing dull 1-2-3 innings. Possibly my future is as a bullpen coach. What must it be like to suit up for another game against a team you thought you'd already eliminated? |
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| Author: | Oeditpus Rex [ Wed Oct 19, 2005 4:47 pm ] |
| Post subject: | |
PunkOnce wrote: My new theory is that relievers subconsciously want to pitch in the most harrowing circumstances possible -- even if they have to fabricate them from scratch.
Jim Bouton wrote in "Ball Four" that he so got off on pressure that he'd sometimes invent a scenario before a crucial game. He told this to his friend and fellow Yankee pitcher Fritz Peterson, who later came up to him before a big game and said, "If you want to see your wife and baby again, you'll win today." |
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| Author: | PunkOnce [ Tue Oct 25, 2005 2:53 pm ] |
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Bouton was talking about starting pitchers of course, and I'm wary of quoting Ball Four around baseball purists anyway -- but thanks, Oed. That quote must have been swimming around in my subconscious after a few stunned hours of pondering the Pujols Miracle. |
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