FanPost

Well, it’s an off-day: Re-watching Game 6 of the 2011 World Series

To an extent, I think overnostalgizing (this is a made-up word, but according to every high school English teacher I ever had Shakespeare made up words too so whatever this is totally fine I think) Game 6 of the 2011 World Series can be dangerous. Well, maybe not even dangerous, but at least annoying. Sure, it’s that ubiquitous "game to tell your children about", but my kids probably won’t care too much about it, at least not beyond the mild degree to which I care about hearing my parents talk about Game 5 of the 1985 NLCS. And the further we get from that game, the less logical it will actually be to talk about it like it happened the night before.

But the thing about that game was it was just soooooooo good. Well, the final two-and-a-half innings were so good, at least. Good enough that I feel like watching them again. Good enough that I consider this game which primarily consisted of inexcusable defensive and base-running lapses to be the best baseball game I have ever seen. But while I’ve skipped to the highlights many times, it’s been a while since I soaked in the smaller details of the major developments of Game 6. So I will now watch, starting with the bottom of the ninth inning, and make observations as I see fit.

Bottom of the 9th

· "This will not be an easy 9th inning for (Neftali) Feliz," said Joe Buck, as the camera pans straight to Ryan Theriot. I remember noticing this at the time and it still kind of bothers me. Though, given his mediocrity and smallness, it does amaze me in retrospect that I don’t still see Theriot shirseys throughout Busch Stadium in the same way that I’ll still see Ecksteins. Poor guy.

· Oh, and he struck out swinging for the fences. I feel like Elvis Andrus would have gotten the putout had he actually made contact.

· Honestly, my first reaction to Albert Pujols swinging at the first pitch was anger. "OH COME ON ALBERT YOU GOTTA STRETCH THE COUNT YOU G…oh, that turned out pretty well."

· After Lance Berkman walked on four pitches, I suddenly became very optimistic. Watching the Rick Ankiel blowup in 2000 ruined me for all pitching performances since, as though a pitcher just suddenly throwing strikes worse than I could is, like, a thing that happens. Ever. Anyway, there’s Allen Craig! He hit a home run in the 8th inning of this game and was an injury replacement for Matt Holliday, who got hurt being picked off third base earlier in the game. That Allen Craig was a bench player is a pretty good counter-argument to anyone who insists the 2011 team wasn’t good.

· Allen Craig REALLY wanted to end the game with a home run. And then he struck out looking. Go figure. This is the point that I conceded defeat. I watched this game with my mom and at this point turned to her and just said "Well, Texas is just better. No shame losing to them." Of course, this was ignoring that the Philadelphia Phillies in 2011 were better than either of these teams, but I think I deserve credit for reaching the final stage of grief so rapidly. I wasn’t even angry or upset. I just figured "Haha, it’s October 27 and this stupid team is still playing after being double digits out of the playoffs two months ago. That’s just adorable."

· "And now the Rangers are one strike away." Cuts to Derek Holland’s "mustache", Ryan Theriot, and a fan in the stands squeezing a rally towel like he’s trying to save it from falling off the edge of a cliff. OKAY FOX I GET IT THE CARDINALS ARE DONE, JUST SHOW THE FIELD.

· GO GO GO GO get up get up…okay it’s not going to leave the park so therefore Cruz is gonna catch the…he didn’t get it COME ON BERKMAN YOU GRACEFUL GAZELLE YOU RUN YOUR EVERLOVING HEART OUT OH MY GOD THEY TIED IT I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THAT WAS AN OPTION. I honestly didn’t. It crossed my mind that Freese might hit a home run and it crossed my mind that he’d get an out but tied? Come on, this game can’t continue. At this point, I jumped out of my chair and jumped up and down. This is not really the way I normally react to televised sports. I wasn’t quite as even-keel as I am now but…jumping wasn’t the normal thing I did. My mom was mad that I jumped because she didn’t want me to wake my dad up. I hold to this day that my defense of "He should be watching this anyway" was a valid one.

· Also, Nelson Cruz got a bum rap for this play. Like, it wouldn’t have been an easy play to make.

· Yadier Molina made a pretty quiet third out because apparently baseball doesn’t care about my cardiovascular system. Oh cool, more of this.

Top of the 10th

· Josh Hamilton’s home run: This should have been the corny Disney movie moment in which the man who had sunk to his ultimate low became the sports hero. And you know what? Even had I not been rooting for the Cardinals, I’m glad it wasn’t. Remember the Titans implies that racial harmony was achieved because a football team won the big game—if you think about it, that’s a terrible thing to argue. And at the same time, Josh Hamilton’s life wouldn’t be redeemed by winning a game. I don’t know if Hamilton has reached his actual personal peak or not, but I guarantee you that it wasn’t shown on Sportscenter.

· The frame ended on a grounder to David Freese. Really feels like salt in the wounds, doesn’t it? Like the dude’s gonna have to do everything tonight.

Bottom of the 10th

· Wait, wait…Darren Oliver? The Cardinals are going to lose the World Series and DARREN OLIVER is going to be on the mound? Darren Oliver was on the Cardinals when I started paying attention to baseball and it seemed like he was about 45 years old then.

· It’s easy to forget, but people used to like Daniel Descalso. Some liked him a lot. But having Descalso and Jon Jay back-to-back to face a lefty seemed…alarming. It’s somewhat different from now, where fans seem oddly excited to see Jay against lefties and fans sharpen their pitchforks when they see Descalso against anybody. And what do you know—Descalso got a legitimate hit! It didn’t go that far, but it was hard hit and everything.

· Jay’s hit is just hilarious though. People have felt uncomfortable with Jon Jay for four years because these are just kind of the hits he gets. But he gets/got them a lot.

· And now, down two with two on in a do-or-die situation for the season, it’s Kyle Lohse batting. And it was almost Edwin Jackson batting. And these aren’t even starting pitchers particularly in the Micah Owings mold, either.

· Lohse totally tried to bunt on the first pitch. And then on the second pitch, he had a successful bunt that was almost a World Series-ending triple play and was almost a bunt single. Bunting is weird.

· So anyway, second and third with an out and it’s Ryan Theriot! People complain about Mike Matheny’s lineup construction like this is something new…in Game 6 of the World Series, Theriot ended up in the 2-hole after a series of double switches (sound familiar?!?!) stemming from starting center fielder Skip Schumaker batting second. Anyway, Theriot grounded out and a run scored on it. That’s about as good as we could have hoped for. When Edwin Jackson was about to reach the plate, it crossed my mind that he could hit a walk-off home run. This didn’t even come close to entering my mind for Theriot.

· Aside from Game 3, Pujols didn’t have a great World Series. And yet Ron Washington gave him the early 2000s Barry Bonds treatment. God bless him for that. Because Lance Berkman was the best player for the Cardinals in the 2011 World Series. *Creates stupid Kevin Durant meme about how Berkman’s the real MVP* Also, Berkman had the greatest walkup song in Cardinals history in "God’s Gonna Cut You Down" by Johnny Cash. That’s a song that says well-contemplated violence is about to be committed against a baseball. He was the best.

· With two strikes and the World Series on the line, Lance Berkman took a ball. It was definitively a ball, but it wasn’t, like, a wild pitch kind of ball where it was incredibly obvious the whole way. If I had the intestinal fortitude to not swing on a pitch somewhere in this hemisphere in that situation, I’d have probably collapsed right there.

· When Berkman got that single and Jon Jay crossed home plate, I just kind of laughed. At that point, what was anybody supposed to do? This sort of thing just didn’t happen and it happened in two consecutive innings. And of course, Allen Craig grounded out and at this point I wanted to throw up. In fairness, I had Taco Bell for dinner that night.

Top of the 11th

· I love Jake Westbrook. I defended Jake Westbrook up until the point that it became completely impossible to do so. As a bigger dude with a beard, I felt Jake Westbrook was my spirit animal (Berkman was too popular for that). That Jake Westbrook got the win in this game just warms my little heart so, so much.

· Oh, there’s a moment I forgot…the point where Rangers pitcher Scott Feldman appeared to not know how to hold a baseball bat. This was fairly disillusioning: I always assumed that every pitcher in baseball, even the most incompetent batters among them, would just absolutely rake in high school. And Scott Feldman had no idea what he was doing. Weird baseball is weird.

Bottom of the 11th

· Ah yes, the montage of great Game Sixes. I mean, granted, I think we all knew as this game was happening that this game was going to be considered a classic no matter what happened going forward, but to air it right before David Freese came to the plate? This is my best argument that baseball is rigged, which honestly makes baseball players seem more impressive if you consider that hitting a ball 400+ feet was apparently part of a script that a guy WHO ISN’T EVEN CONSIDERED ONE OF THE GREAT ONES was expected to follow.

· Off the bat, it didn’t look like a home run to me. Freese hit the ball hard, but to dead center. A ball has to go really far and I just didn’t believe it. I was hoping that a bad route would be taken and he’d be able to get a double out of it. But…it went. I should point out that this walk-off home run to win a World Series game is arguably not David Freese’s defining moment as a Cardinal (because of what happened two innings prior) but celebrating said home run is inarguably Gerald Laird’s.

· "How did this happen?" This reaction from Tim McCarver, just two innings removed from calling David Freese’s dramatic triple a double, was perfect. This came a solid minute and a half after Joe Buck had announced the moment. Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, in this moment, absolutely got it right—there was nothing to say. There were no words to do what had just unfolded justice. So why bother?