Chapter Twenty-two

You Had to See It for Yourself

ATHLETES ARE OFTEN CRITICIZED BY SOME FOR RELYING SO HEAVILY on clichés to talk about the games they play. To some extent that’s true. We do get asked a lot of questions, and sometimes, whether because we’ve been asked the same one so many times, because they speak the truth, or because we’re speaking guardedly to protect ourselves, a teammate, or our club, we resort to the tried and true—just like this one.

Every now and then something happens that’s so special, so unique to our own experience, that often, when we’re asked to speak before what’s gone on has had a chance to register in our brains, we reach into the box of clichés that sits right alongside the David’s sunflower seeds and the Gatorade on the dugout bench, hoping to find one that fits the situation. On the night of October 27, 2011, the media, the fans, the players, and the coaching staffs all resorted to one cliché or another, none of us really capable of putting into words what we’d all just been through for four hours and thirty-three minutes and how it was going to figure in our lives after being a part of it.

It was worth the wait, to get through both the 4:33 and the two days off between Games 5 and 6. The first of those was a travel day, the second a cancellation due to rain. We were just going to adjust and be ready. The rhythm of the Series was thrown off, but I can’t say that accounted for the somewhat erratic action that took place on the field in the first six or seven innings.

As early as noon I had gotten a couple of calls from C.J., our director of travel, telling me that the commissioner’s office had called with the news that the forecast was anywhere from bad to really bad. They were putting us on notice that the game might be canceled. Rain had played havoc with a Rangers-Tigers ALCS game, and they didn’t want the same thing to happen in Game 6. The fact that it was rained out had a plus and a minus. The extra day off with no game stories to tell meant that the media went after us about the Game 5 loss. That was more than made up for by the fact that Carp might be available if we got to Game 7.

Thanks to Rick Carlisle, I was able to handle the media better than I would have otherwise. He’d been at the game, and on the scheduled day off he and I got together. Obviously, as head coach of the Dallas Mavericks, he’s had a lot of experience in dealing with tough questions. He knew the situation I was in, so he suggested that he play the role of the questioner. He came after me intensely. That dress rehearsal really helped with my control when I faced the media for real later in the day.

Unfortunately, I also had experience with an interrupted World Series. The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 in California was an enormous tragedy. The fact that the Series that year was between two Bay Area teams magnified the impact for the immediate area as well as the rest of the country. Understandably, our hearts and minds were elsewhere in the immediate aftermath. We all had friends and family in the city of San Francisco to be concerned about, and our personal lives had been seriously disrupted. Like anyone else, we wanted our lives to get back to as close to normal as possible, as soon as possible. We were a professional baseball organization, and we needed to play—if for no other reason than to bring some relief from the stresses of dealing with a natural disaster and to send a signal that the Bay Area was going to be okay.

Once we got word that the original five-day delay would be extended another five, our thoughts returned to the Series. Naturally, I was concerned about how we would get everyone to refocus after such a calamity. We’d won the first two games, and we had a great club that was peaking. How was an eleven-day layoff from game competition going to affect them? Naturally, I checked in with the guys—Dave Stewart, Eck, Carney Lansford, and others—and asked them how they were feeling.

Carney, “Captain Intensity,” said, “Tony, we could play the games next spring and still go after them.”

I was glad to hear those remarks, but I also wanted to be prepared. I’d read Pat Riley’s book Showtime, about his years with his championship-winning clubs in L.A. In it, he talked about how he’d organized a three-day camp kind of getaway when the playoffs were about to begin and his team was taking on the task of repeating. Instead of just having workouts, they’d travel someplace where the guys would all live and practice together and not go home to family and their regular lives. During the day, they’d go over their scouting reports, game plans, and practice. At night they’d get together as a team and talk, reaffirm their goals, and bond as a team.

I thought that was cool and wondered if that was something we might be able to do.

On Tuesday, October 24, I learned that the Series was going to resume that coming Friday. The Bay Area forecast was for a chance of rain, so we might not be able to do what we intended there. I called the GM, Sandy Alderson, and told him about my plan. He got in touch with our owner, Mr. Haas, and that Wednesday we were all on a charter flight to Phoenix, our spring training home, for workouts. I felt like the guys needed to get away from the area. There was lots of talk in some circles that the Series should just be canceled entirely. Hearing all that could have cast a pall on the whole season for the guys. You want a World Series title to be a celebration, not an afterthought or, worse, what some people would think of as a black eye for the sport. I could understand that lives were lost and people were upset. But if we were going to play—and I fully supported the idea that we should—then the cloud of negativity hanging over the Series was one we had to get out from under.

Some people said baseball was just a game, and that puzzled me. If it was just a game, then why were pro football and college football games being played and no one was objecting? If baseball was just an entertainment, then why weren’t people complaining about movie theaters staying open or television shows still being broadcast? The guys were human, and they had to be feeling down. I had told them that we were going to Phoenix to work out, to have dinner together as a team, to talk about all the things that had begun right there in spring training, and we were going to put a nice finishing cap on that by winning the Series.

Something happened that I couldn’t have predicted or planned on. As we approached the airport, the pilot came on the intercom and told us that if we looked off to our right, we could see the A’s spring training complex. Traffic was backed up all around Municipal Stadium. The pilot added, “You guys are going to have some kind of crowd for your workout.”

We did. The place was mobbed, and when we went out there to practice, we got an amazing reception. That squad had a bunch of personalities on it—Dave Parker was the DH, Don Baylor the hitter off the bench—and they just basked in that attention. The life was back in them.

We went out to dinner that night. As coaches, we talked to the guys about getting our minds back right, but mostly we all just laughed a lot and enjoyed ourselves. Dave Parker, who is as quick-witted as any player I’d ever met, took control of the evening’s entertainment. For two years he had filled our off time with barbs directed at one teammate or another. I told Dave he should have hosted his own late-night talk show. To this day I’m sure when Eck hears “Parkway’s” name, he cringes. The next day we went out and had a bit of fun with the coaches and the players. We later learned that more than 10,000 people had come out to watch us, that kids got to skip school. The whole thing was a real feel-good.

We regained our edge and took Games 3 and 4 to sweep the Giants. Their pitching was hurting that postseason, and we got it done.

No one could say how that extra day off would impact this 2011 Series, but one thing we knew coming in was that this was an “all ready” game for the bullpen—with two days off, each of them had had enough rest that they’d be fresh. What the extra day off was going to do to Jaime’s preparation was something we talked about with him. He was pitching with six days’ rest. We’d given him extended rest throughout the comeback, and we told him that he’d done well in those starts when he didn’t get his normal four days. To tell him that this was just another game and to treat it that way would have been B.S. Besides, we never say things like that, and he’d have seen right through that attempt to “relax” him. Tell him that he was working with the kind of time off between starts that he’d had a number of times before and had success with it and you’re being honest. Draw on your past success. Do the things we tell you about embracing pressure, acknowledging it, and doing the job you’ve done before.

When I looked in Jaime’s eyes, he was excited, and I was glad to see that. This was the perfect example of what we coach. If you’re going to win a championship, you’re going to face these kinds of moments, so you prepare for them by getting well acquainted with pressure. By doing that, you understand that this is the edge you’ve worked at gaining all year. Go out there and be the guy.

Whatever the case, from the outset of Game 6, Jaime didn’t look like the Jaime of Game 2. A leadoff walk and two singles scored the dreaded first run, but then, fortunately, Jaime settled down and got two strikeouts and a ground ball to limit the damage—exactly what we needed him to do in that situation. As the guys came into the dugout, the starters and the bench guys—especially Carp, Wainwright, Laird—all said, “We need to answer.”

They were right, and we did.

With two outs and a runner on in our half of the first, Lance Berkman got a ball out over the plate and drove it into the left-center-field bleachers to put us up 2–1. As soon as they scored, one of our key guys made a real statement, and that let them know that we were going to do whatever it took. In retrospect, even with all the late-game heroics, Lance’s home run was almost as important as what Freese later did.

Jaime walked Napoli to lead off the second. I looked at Dunc and said, as I had in the first, “Something doesn’t look right.” A Craig Gentry single put runners on first and second, and here we caught a National League break: their pitcher had to hit. Of course, their pitchers had been taking batting practice for a while through the playoff run in anticipation of getting to the World Series. But that’s not the same as live pitching. I was also “what-if-ing” about how we could keep them from scoring, paying particular attention to our bunt defense options. We went with our number-four play, and Jaime made a nice pitch. We executed it perfectly. David Freese was charging hard, as was Albert. Furcal drifted toward the hole, while Theriot held the runner close near the bag. They held their ground for a bit before breaking for the corner bags. Seeing them move, Jaime delivered the pitch. David fielded a bunt hit hard and at him, and with Yadi yelling, “Three!” at the top of his lungs, we turned a neat 5-6-4 double play. That slight risk in putting on an aggressive defensive play paid off.

We were one out away from slamming the door on their good opportunity and giving Jaime a nice confidence boost. Unfortunately, Ian Kinsler, who’d gotten one of the three hits off Jaime in Game 2 and had walked two other times against him, which told us he was getting good looks, went deep into the count again before doubling to deep center on a 3-2 pitch to drive in a run. Again, Jaime didn’t let them score another run in that inning. As important as that was, we could still tell that something wasn’t quite right with him. We couldn’t see anything obviously flawed with his delivery, but his stuff didn’t have its usual life.

In the top of the third, Jaime worked around a one-out single with the help of a double-play ball off the bat of Adrian Beltre. We got out of the inning, but I decided that was enough. The rainout and our pen being fresh influenced that decision, as did their being a strong right-handed club. Also, as had happened in the last part of the season during the comeback and into the playoffs, those lingering questions about Jaime’s stamina were still there.

The main factor was this: we were in an elimination game, and we couldn’t let things get away from us early. I went up to Jaime and said, “That’s enough. I’m going to make a change.”

The dugout isn’t the place to start any kind of debate or to let your teammates know that you disagree. At this point, because we’d been stressing urgency for so long, the starters had been through the so-called quick hook enough times to understand the decision. As Jaime nodded, I could tell he was disappointed, in himself as much as in the decision. I then added the clincher: “We don’t want to get you hurt.” Dunc and I were legitimately concerned that if Jaime continued to struggle and his competitive nature took over, he might try to do too much and hurt his arm again.

I went with Fernando Salas, sticking with a pattern that we’d used to succeed before. I have to give Fernando a lot of credit. He’d been our saves leader for the season, but he adjusted well to his new role and never complained. Matt Holliday dropped a Nelson Cruz fly ball, and Salas wasn’t able to pick him up. He allowed Napoli’s single to right, and the Rangers took the lead. At that point, it seemed like Napoli was building a case to be the Series MVP. I didn’t think that single run would hold up as the game- and Series-winning RBI for him, but he was having a helluva Series against us. He wound up hitting .350 and driving in ten runs.

The slack play continued when, on a bunt back to him, Salas tried to get the runner at second and threw wide of the bag into center field. Fortunately, Salas didn’t let that affect him, and he retired the next two men.

At the end of every inning, I worked through an analysis of what had just transpired. So far, in four innings, we had done a good job three times of limiting the potential damage of their offense. In any game, you never know how important those stops are going to be.

Another error on a leadoff at-bat, this time committed by their first baseman, Michael Young, led to a run. Berkman was the beneficiary of that mistake. A Holliday walk, a fielder’s choice, and a groundout produced the run. This was all about taking advantage of a break. To score that run, we didn’t have a single hit. In fact, if it weren’t for the error, the ball would have never left the infield.

When Josh Hamilton reached on David Freese’s error on a pop-up to start the fifth, that was the third time in a row a half-inning had begun with a defensive miscue. I stood there wondering, Is this a full moon game? All kinds of stuff that shouldn’t have been happening was going on. It seemed like each error was more inexplicable than the one before it. These were routine plays, and the guys making the errors normally didn’t slip up like that. Sometimes defensive lapses can become contagious. I had to push that thought aside and keep a positive frame of mind. We’d fix those problems later. Dwelling on a negative would be counterproductive.

Each time, when the guys came in, I said to them, “Keep playing.” Physical errors like the ones we made were going to happen. As long as they weren’t mental errors, a lack of effort or a lapse in concentration, I was okay with them.

The Rangers capitalized again when Young drove one into the left-center-field gap to put them up for the third time in five innings. I wasn’t going to let Napoli pad his possible MVP credentials later in the inning, preferring to walk him to face David Murphy. That put runners on first and second. Salas then walked the bases loaded with an unintentional intentional walk to get to the pitcher. This was nervous time. Following his double, Young had advanced to third on a fly-out. By walking Napoli, we’d purposely put another runner in scoring position, something you wouldn’t normally do unless the pitcher’s slot was coming up. Colby Lewis was an American League pitcher, but if he somehow managed to get a hit or another defensive lapse occurred, it could mean two more runs. Salas didn’t keep me on tenterhooks for long. Three straight strikes and Lewis was out of there.

As the guys came back in, the bench was up and chirping, “Hey, we’re in this game,” “We dodged a bullet,” and “They’re not getting crooked numbers.” Everybody recognized that the Rangers’ missed opportunities were working in our favor.

During the top of the fifth, I’d already had Lance Lynn up in the bullpen and Jon Jay in the batting cage loosening up to pinch-hit for Salas. I wanted a leadoff-type hitter there since Salas’s spot was coming up first. It didn’t matter. We went three up and three down, with Schumaker making the last out.

As a result, I used the double switch and put the pitcher in that spot to buy two places in the order and to save a player. I also went with Lynn out of the bullpen because I was hoping to get two innings from him. Even though Lynn had thrown forty-seven pitches in Game 3, by having him throw those four intentional balls in Game 5 instead of live pitches, I’d effectively gotten him four days’ rest. Luckily, we didn’t have to deal with the communication problems with the bullpen like we had in Arlington. At Busch, we can see the relievers from our dugout and our bullpen phone is tucked far enough beneath the stands that the noise doesn’t interfere as much.

In the visitors’ sixth, Lynn gave up a two-out single before Michael Young lined out to right. Michael Young made eight errors in 160 games as the Rangers’ first baseman. He’d made one in the fourth inning of this game, and then, with Lance Berkman at first on a slow roller to third, Young made his second error of the night on a bad throw trying to get Berkman at second base on a Holliday grounder. We wound up scoring a run when Lewis walked Freese, loading the bases, and Ogando came into the game and promptly walked Yadi. The score was tied, and for the second time we’d scored a run without a batted ball leaving the infield. I wasn’t sure if the baseball gods were laughing or crying.

With Nick Punto up and still only one out, we were looking to break this thing open. Ogando threw a first-pitch strike, and then, on the second pitch, Matt Holliday got caught taking too aggressive a walking lead off third and was picked off. Not only that, to literally add injury to insult, he hurt his wrist. Matt’s overaggressiveness cost him and us. We weren’t going to put on the squeeze play in that situation, so there was no need for him to take that kind of lead. Ogando’s stuff had too much life and his command was just erratic enough to make him tough to bunt on. Worse, Matt was out of the game and, as it turned out, the Series.

An Ogando wild pitch advanced the runners to second and third. Punto wound up walking to reload the bases, and Ron Washington, demonstrating that he wanted to end the Series right here in Game 6, brought in his starter, Derek Holland, who’d pitched so effectively against us in Game 4, in relief. The plan worked. Jon Jay grounded one right back to Holland.

Between innings, as I did my analysis, I had two options. I could think of these two instances of getting a run without the benefit of a hit, and not getting even more runs with a clutch hit, as a reflection of our offense not really producing. Or I could recognize the positive in the team having tied the score going into the last three innings of a home game. I took the latter view, telling those other thoughts to get the hell out of there before they’d even had a chance to settle in. I did the same when I briefly thought that if we were to lose, this would be the worst possible way, because we were not playing well to that point.

Those runs we’d gotten—or maybe the Rangers handed us—were important. Just as the times when we’d limited them to a single run were important. Don’t do something to lose the game when on defense. Do something to win the game on offense. Do that nine times and you win. Of course, at this point, I couldn’t have foreseen what shape those somethings to win and to lose would take.

I also had to think about our less than perfect efforts.

Holliday had made a fundamental baserunning mistake, we had committed three defensive errors, and yet we were still right in there. Three times earlier in the game we’d given them more outs, but our pitchers weren’t caving in. That was impressive—if the pitchers had caved, whatever offensive heroics were looming later in the game wouldn’t have mattered. We were able to come back from two-run deficits, but could we have dug ourselves out from a three-run, four-run, or five-or-more-run hole?

I was unhappy about our not playing a clean game, but I kept the positive self-talk going. I’d learned a long time ago that if I gave the guys any suggestion that I was upset, that I was giving in to the negative or acting at all like this wasn’t our night, they’d pick up on that and feed off my negative energy.

Six pitches later, I needed to maintain that same positivity when we were down 6–4. Beltre and Cruz both homered. Our scouting report had told us that if we got balls up in the zone a bit and over too much of the plate, these two were going to launch them. That’s exactly what happened. Busch Stadium was so quiet I could have yelled to Lilliquist in the bullpen to see how Dotel and R-zep were doing as they warmed up.

After the home runs and after striking out the dangerous Napoli, Lynn gave up a bloop single to Murphy and then made a nice play to retire him at second on a poor bunt by Holland. It was time to get Lynn—he’d been out there awhile. I told him, “Hey, you got us five outs. These guys can hit. You did well.” I meant every word.

Whatever good vibes Carlos Santana had passed on to me with that necklace back in September seemed to have worn off. Dotel wild-pitched Holland to second, and Kinsler twisted the knife a bit by singling him in. We were now down by three runs with nine outs left to play. Not impossible by any stretch of the imagination. A run an inning could get us there. The bench guys continued their late season refrain, “We can’t lose!”

Holland made that task more difficult by retiring the side in order in the bottom of the seventh. Once again we didn’t get the ball out of the infield. Six outs in the game, possibly the season. I recognized that with their closing bullpen staff and that deficit, things weren’t going to be easy. The situation was desperate, but not hopeless. I remembered what I’d written on my cards earlier that day: “keep on believing,” “be good enough,” “be tough enough.”

In professional sports, toughness is more important than talent. We had both. And I still believed.

R-ZEP WAS THE LOGICAL CHOICE TO REPLACE DOTEL, WITH HAMILTON, Moreland, and Beltre due up. He neutralized the left-right trap very nicely with three very quick ground-ball outs. Given all the late-inning heroics, I don’t want R-zep’s inning of work there to go unremarked on. We were still down three, but if they had added on again, or if we’d had a really protracted inning with a number of pitching changes, we could have started to feel sorry for ourselves and begun thinking that it had been a nice ride, but it was time to step off it. That possibility, given the makeup of this group, was unlikely, but R-zep’s energized and efficient disposal of three tough hitters was more than just a glimmer of light.

We were still in this.

Allen Craig, who replaced Holliday in left in the top of the seventh, was due to face Holland, who’d retired all five men he’d faced to that point. I was just returning to my usual spot in the dugout after having said, “Great job,” to R-zep before letting him know that that was it for him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Allen’s bat lash ferociously around in his follow-through. He hit Holland’s slider right over the image of number 45 Bob Gibson. Down by two with five outs to go. Even though we didn’t score again in the inning, we had three hits. Instead of bemoaning a lost opportunity, the fact that we kept battling like that was another of those flashes of light, like R-zep’s performance.

Needing to hold them right there, I called on Jason Motte in the ninth. Like R-zep, he gave us a lift, working quickly and around a one-out walk to send us back to the dugout.

I walked to the far end of the dugout as the guys were coming off the field to say to the guys on the bench, “This is when we need you.”

The bench responded, “Let’s get something started.”

I felt good hearing all that support coming from everyone.

THAT AFTERNOON, BEFORE THE GAME HAD STARTED, MO HAD COME to my office. He’d told me that our owner, Mr. DeWitt, wanted to be sure that if we lost the game, the players took a few minutes to go out on the field, even while the other team was celebrating, to thank the fans. The official presentation of the trophy would take about ten minutes to set up, so we wouldn’t be doing anything to detract from a Rangers celebration. Of course, that was the right thing to do, both the salute to the fans and Mo’s coming to mention it to me. I appreciated the reminder, and went back to my business.

As their closer, Neftali Feliz, took his warm-up tosses, I got on the phone to remind Lilliquist to give the guys left in the bullpen the heads-up about thanking the fans. I told him not to say anything until there were two outs and it looked like we were going to get beat, and then tell the relievers who were left to come down to the dugout to join their teammates. I went around to tell the guys in the dugout who either had played in the game or were not eligible to play in the Series. I said, “We’ve got a real shot here, but we need to corral the guys and step out for a minute to salute the fans.”

They were already on the top step, and as I walked along I saw a row of Cardinal red hoods and hats. When they heard me they turned, and I caught a glimpse of their faces before they turned back around, nodding, some of them pivoting their gaze from one of the outfield scoreboards to the infield and back. Were they wondering if somehow one glance would reveal something different from the previous one?

I settled in. The sound of one of Feliz’s explosive fastballs was audible over the crowd’s expectant and nervous thrum. I took a deep breath, and as I had done probably more than 45,000 times before, I watched my team come to bat in their half-inning.

Feliz was well rested, and it showed. His fastball had the kind of jump to it that the best hard throwers have. Theriot went down swinging.

Two outs to go.

Albert stepped into the home-plate circle. He was hitless in three at-bats. I couldn’t ignore all the flashbulbs going off or the appreciative roar of the fans. Everyone was thinking that this might be it for Albert. With his free agency being one of the hot topics of conversation around the major leagues, what else could you think at that point? But Albert clearly wasn’t thinking about it. On Feliz’s first pitch, a fastball out on the edge, Albert reached out and stroked it into left-center field for a double. He pointed to the sky. I was looking at Feliz, hoping I could read something in his demeanor, but I couldn’t see his expression. The four straight balls to Berkman told me something. There was no way they wanted to put the tying run on base. I was hoping that maybe the moment had gotten to Feliz. His strikeout of Craig said otherwise.

In a fitting bit of irony, David Freese, who’d rooted for the Cardinals as a kid, who we’d received in a trade from San Diego for his favorite Cardinal, Jim Edmonds, came to the plate as potentially the last hope for Cardinals Nation.

One out to go.

A ball.

A strike looking.

A swinging strike.

One strike left in the season.

I hoped that David would get his front foot set sooner. On the swinging strike he hadn’t.

David Freese then did what many people don’t think is possible. He made me smile.

I watched as Feliz stood at the back of the mound, gazing into the outfield. They were one strike away from winning the World Series—what better moment to take it all in?

What better moment to take it all away?

When Freese extended his hands and stepped slightly toward the outside corner, setting that front foot, he hit Feliz’s fastball on a line drive. The sound of the contact was so pure, but as the ball reached its peak and then started into its downward flight, like everyone else in Busch Stadium I would assume, I wondered if what I’d thought at first might be a walk-off home run was going to turn into an out. Cruz went back on it hard, but the ball went back even more quickly. If he gloved it, he was a World Series hero for the ages. If he didn’t, we were still in this thing.

Hitting hard off the wall, the ball caromed back far enough that if Cruz hadn’t had the presence of mind to get back after it hard, we might have seen another first: an inside-the-park walk-off home run. I stood there clapping my hands, smiling and marveling at the determination in this whole scene. Here again, I felt a bit of an advantage. I didn’t think the Rangers had a good read on Freese’s opposite-field power and how his ball would carry that way. If they had, Cruz might have been positioned deeper. If Cruz had recognized it, he might have broken back more quickly. Whether human nature factored into this at all, them being one strike away, I can’t say.

As excited as we all were, we still had a runner on third and two out. Yadi jumped all over the first pitch and nearly ended the game right there. His line drive to right was hit hard, but directly at Cruz. Believe me, the thought of not being too greedy and just being grateful for what we had didn’t cross my mind. I wanted that game over, and Yadi nearly made that desire come true.

We all had so much adrenaline pumping through our bodies and were enjoying the moment, but everybody immediately changed gears after Yadi made the out. As we’d been doing for so long, we weren’t going away. We knew the reality. The score was tied, and we had more game to play. Let’s go play defense.

Kinsler popping up on the first pitch I thought was going to be huge for us. Jason Motte was in his second inning of work, something he’d done nine times already that year. Kinsler certainly helped by going after that first pitch, and I think it was a sound strategy to go right after Motte, hoping that he’d leave a good one to hit out over the plate. He didn’t, and when, after a first-pitch ball, Andrus blooped one into center on the very next pitch, it felt like the inning was being played at an accelerated pace.

We knew that Hamilton would go up there swinging. We’d talked to the pitchers about not getting too much of the plate on the first pitch. Jason missed. Hamilton didn’t. With one swing, we were right back where we’d been going into the ninth inning—down by two. To his credit, Jason got the final two outs. The dugout had quieted for a bit after the home runs, but as the defense came in, the noise level jumped up again. I heard a lot of talk about there being no way that we were going to get beat.

Once again, I had to make that call to Lilliquist to remind him about management’s request: remember to thank the fans. I’m not sure, but I think I set a World Series record for thank-you reminders that night. I don’t know if Lilliquist ever told anybody. It didn’t matter, the guys had another plan in mind as a way to thank the fans for coming out to the ballpark.

Darren Oliver, who’d just turned forty-one earlier that month, and who’d pitched for the Cardinals back in ’98 and ’99, was their choice to face us in the tenth. He was their Arthur Rhodes, a veteran left-hander who’d been around for a lot of years, eighteen seasons, and was likely to be unfazed by the situation. He was going to face our youngsters, Daniel Descalso and Jon Jay. Descalso had entered the game in the eighth and had singled in his only at-bat. The classic matchup of youth versus experience was on. I watched, knowing that these young guys understood the moment. They weren’t so young that the “ignorance is bliss” factor was coming into play. Daniel had very little experience at shortstop, but there he was in a game destined to become as memorable as any World Series game, and he was unflappable.

He went up there and really got into his competition with Oliver, fouling off three near-put-away pitches before singling to right. Were we going to have to trot Yogi back out and have him say “déjà vu all over again”? After taking a strike, Jay, who was 1-for-3 since coming into the game in the fifth, singled to shallow left, one of those break-your-heart jobs that pitchers hate. The pitcher’s spot was next, but I’d gone through every position player at this point, so the only option was to use another pitcher—a starter because they had more at-bats than anyone else among the staff—to go up to bunt the runners over. When I’d looked at the cards the previous inning, I’d already laid out my plan. Edwin Jackson was in the on-deck circle. If Jay made an out, Edwin was going to hit. Among the pitchers available to hit, he had the most pop in his bat. If we had one on and one out, he was the man I hoped could step into one and get a base hit to help us.

I was pointing at the umpire, indicating that I was sending up Jackson as a pinch hitter. Then I quickly reconsidered. This was a bunt situation, and Kyle Lohse, the better bunter, was going to go up there. I had made a mistake and wasted Jackson. The thought crossed my mind that if we tied I’d have wasted a valuable player. I’m sure people thought we were running around like Cardinals with our heads cut off. That meant that Lohse was now pinch-hitting for the pinch hitter.

I stood there shaking my head as I scratched Jackson off my card, mumbling, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Lohse bunted the ball past the pitcher and third baseman, so the shortstop had to field it, and the runners advanced.

Runners, and speedy ones at that, were on second and third with one out. Scott Feldman, a right-hander, was called in to face Theriot and Albert, the next two hitters and both right-handers. Feldman got Theriot on a ground ball to third, but Descalso was able to score because the infielders were playing back. They had traded an out for a run.

Being down one instead of two was huge. Though Jay wasn’t able to advance, with his speed, any ball into the outfield would give him a great chance of scoring to tie the game. The Rangers weren’t going to let Albert beat them. They intentionally walked him, the potential tying run, to face Berk. He was 2-for-4 and had walked once, driven in two runs, and scored three. Berk was 3-for-9 against Feldman. Also, Berk had been clutch for us all year, he was having a productive year as a run producer, and he’d been seeing the ball well all night.

As bad as I felt about wasting Jackson, I at least had the presence of mind, earlier in the inning, to call down to the bullpen, telling them to get Jake Westbrook up. I’d seen dozens of extra-inning games like this—lots of back and forth and then a long stretch when neither team is able to score. The ebb and flow takes on that cadence of in and out. I also knew that we’d gone through a lot of pitchers, so if the game did evolve into a marathon, I wanted the guy who could go that distance in there for us.

I was hoping Jake would be needed.

Berk went up there attacking and fouled off the first pitch. After a ball, he fouled off the next one. We were down to our last strike for the second time in the game. We’d been in the same spot in the ninth. Two thoughts competed in my mind. Whenever you’re behind and end up losing but don’t go quietly, you feel good about how you competed. A spirited rally means something. We were fortunate that the lineup had turned so that, if we had to be in this position, either Albert or Lance would be in there. Also, a brief image of Adron Chambers sprinting home to score the winning run in that game in Chicago briefly flashed through my mind. I was still hopeful.

Feldman threw a fastball in, but missed just slightly, and Berk lined it, not a bullet but solidly, into center field. We were tied at 9–9. Berk was so cool in that situation, even when he got to the bag at first. He just calmly took off his batting gloves, looked out into the outfield, most likely watching the replay as if he were at home. Later on, he was asked how he handled big-game pressure. He said that he prayed for calmness and to be able to compete. He was indeed calm, and he did compete. He also answered a lot of Cardinal fans’ prayers. When asked what he was thinking during that at-bat, he said, “Nothing.” I loved that. No thinking, just doing.

I sensed in the ninth when we’d tied it that people were going to talk about this game for a long time. When we did it again in the tenth, I knew that people were going to talk about this game forever.

When Albert made it to third, I’m sure a lot more prayers were launched. Craig grounded out to the third baseman to end the inning.

We’d added Jake to the roster because his approach seemed the most similar to how we’d seen the Tigers’ pitchers working against the Rangers’ right-handers. After retiring Nelson Cruz, Jake gave up a single to Mike Napoli. That guy just impressed me. He’d tweaked his ankle, and there was some doubt about whether he could play, but he was on base five out of six times, with three of those coming on walks. Jake retired the next two, and for the first time since the ninth, we entered an inning not having to score in order to stay in the World Series.

David Freese led off for us against Mark Lowe, who mixed a mid-nineties fastball with a very sharp breaking slider. By the time Lowe threw the third of three straight balls, I was already “what-if-ing” the straight bunt or the show-and-bring-back bunt, then switch to the hit-and-run with Yadi. I watched Lowe intently, looking to see if he was around the plate, trying to figure out if the hit-and-run would be a good option. Descalso was in the hole, and he was our best chance to drive in a run if we got the man to second. Yadi liked the hit-and-run, and so that worked in the favor of hit-and-run. After Descalso was Jay and Westbrook. If it came down to it.

Three pitches later, David Freese did a solo version of the hit-and-run. He was soon joined by every one of his teammates in doing that. He hit a fastball on the inner half and crushed it to straightaway center field onto the grass of the hitters’ backdrop.

In situations like that, it’s almost as if the ball has some gravitational pull on you. As it climbs, it lifts you up, body and spirit. The guys at the rail rose up on their feet, craned their necks, and raised their arms above their heads. They were uplifted and exultant, as was I, experiencing what I imagine weightlessness must be like.

As much as I wanted to charge out there and join the guys clustered around the plate, waiting to tear the jersey off Freese’s back and leaving the Hall of Fame to ask for shreds if they wanted them, I hugged Dunc instead, and then the rest of the coaches and I all gathered in the dugout. Shaking hands and shaking our heads, marveling at the wonder of it all.

Later on, as the postgame press conferences went on and on with so many stories to tell and so many questions to be asked, I heard Lance Berkman say of his big hit in the tenth, “I actually felt pretty good because I figured I was in a no-lose situation. If you don’t come through right there, it’s only one at-bat and it’s over with, and they might talk about it for a couple days, but it’s not that big a deal. If you come through, it’s the greatest, and plus you’ve built a little bank account of being able to come through, so that if I don’t come through tomorrow I can be like, ‘Well, I came through in Game 6, what do you want from me?’ ”

What we want from our players most often is that they do the routine things. When they do the spectacular, as so many of them did during the course of the season, and then again in this one game, all those failures to do the routine just recede into the background—at least for a little while. There was analysis to be done, but that could wait for another time. The only analysis we had room for at this point were the numbers:

1.   We were down to our final strike twice.

2.   We were the first team ever in playoff history to score in the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh innings.

3.   We were the first team in playoff history to trail five times and come back to win.

4.   We were the first team in playoff history to be behind in the ninth and in extra innings to win.

This was going to be another of those sleepless nights, the rare few, the pleasurable few, when you can’t shut down because you’re so wired from the great and classic things that went on that day that resting feels like erasing and you don’t want to let those images go just yet.

Elaine and I went to Shannon’s restaurant after the game with Rick Carlisle and Howard Schultz, the chairman of Starbucks, and friends. We stayed until about 3:30 in the morning.

It was fun to relive that sixth game, but about the middle of the dinner I started to get distracted, turning my attention to Game 7. Dunc and I had decided that Carp was going to start. But just to make sure, I called Dunc later that morning and said, “Let’s discuss the alternatives.”

He said, “Carp’s pitching.” And then he hung up on me.

One analysis down, plenty more to go.