When you grow up watching baseball, there are many October nights where you might sit in your living room, watch the intensity of a World Series game and dream of what it would be like to attend one.
The Fall Classic, even on television, is a dramatic spectacle of endurance, intensity, pageantry and strategy.
At least that’s pretty much how it seemed to me as a child.
I hung on every pitch when the Florida Marlins won the Series in 1997. I memorized the lineups and pitching rotations of the New York Yankees teams of 1998, 1999 and 2000.
In short, the sights and sounds of postseason baseball have always carried a mythic quality to me, and to be perfectly truthful always seemed worlds away from the reality of my isolated Mississippi existence.
That was, until, St Louis upset the Mets in the Game 7 of the National League Championship Series, putting them in the World Series the same week I was to be in The Gateway City for a journalism conference.
Fantasy had become reality.
The previous night’s rain had delayed the game but did little to dampen the spirits of the Cardinal fans.
The stands were packed with red jackets and jerseys more than an hour before the first pitch.
The air was electric with the chance of victory. Cardinal legend Ozzie Smith’s son sang the National anthem, allowing for a blending of talent and team history in just the right measures.
The city of St. Louis, historically a baseball town, had been without a title for 24 years and had just been swept out of the Series in 2004 by the Boston Red Sox.
This failure fresh in their minds, most fans seemed excited by the possibility of a championship and yet wary of truly believing that possibility was actually possible, all at the same time.
Thus the atmosphere was an intense hybrid of live-in-the-moment adulation and wait-and-see pessimism.
Sean Casey’s home run in the top of the second muted the home crowd significantly. The fans began rationalizing-it’s just one run, it’s still early, etc.-and rationalizing is usually the mindset of a gambler just before he loses his rent check.
Casey and Ivan Rodriguez both singled in runs in the third to further despair the crowd, and I began to contemplate if this comedy of errors was really worth $300.
The whole mystique of the World Series is predicated on your team winning, and when that doesn’t happen, the grim reality of defeat is much more scary than any regular season game. This is the big time!
The Cardinals seemed to sense the masses growing despondent, and in the bottom of the third David Eckstein doubled to left center to drive home Aaron Miles.
Hope? Maybe, but I was doubtful.
Then Yadier Molina doubled in Scott Rolen in the fourth to decrease the Cardinals’ deficit to only a single run.I turned to the rest of the group and said, “Congratulations gentlemen, we now have a ballgame!”
After Molina’s heroics, there were two innings of silent anticipation. The Cardinals were so close but still needed two more runs to punch in a victory.
“This doesn’t look good,” C.J. said to me after a pinch-hit strikeout ended the bottom of the sixth.
“Relax,” I said. “We’re going to sing ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ in just a minute and then we’ve got the top of the order coming up in the bottom of the seventh. This is right where we want to be.”
This didn’t seem to calm him at all, nor did it me, as I was far from certain this team had another offensive burst left in it.
But when Eckstein sailed a double over a stumbling Curtis Granderson’s head in deep center, I knew the hunt was on.
So Taguchi was the next batter, and his infield grounder made me think Tony LaRussa was interested in playing small ball.
But no, the Detroit reliever threw the ball over the first baseman’s head! Eckstein touched home to tie the game, and the crowd was in a frenzy.
Three batters later Preston Wilson-stepson of legendary clutch player Mookie Wilson-singled to score Taguchi and the stadium shook.
The game was over. The Cardinals had battled back and now had victory within their grasp.
That was until Brandon Inge doubled in Rodriguez in the next frame to tie the game at four.
A collective sigh; here we go again. The temperature dropped from 50 to about 43, as if to signal the intensity level had just been ratcheted up again.
After seven and a half frames, we were back to ground zero. First to score would probably win.
The thought of extra innings was enticing, but I liked Detroit’s chances with their bullpen.
No, this game needed to be won immediately before the vultures of fate pecked a hole in the St. Louis victory ship.
With two outs in the bottom of the eighth, Eckstein came up huge again for the Redbirds, doubling to center to score Miles.
Again, the stadium erupted.
Three up, three down for the Tigers in the top of the ninth and the game was finished.
The level of insanity is indescribable. The reverberations of the crowd noise were rattling my chest and chilling my skin.
This was what baseball was all about.
I was witnessing the culmination of six months of slumps, streaks, ups, downs and doubleheaders.
This win and eventual series title was the culmination of all their hopes and goals.
And it was everything I ever dreamed it would be.