An October to Remember~~~Part II

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show...(the opening lines of David Copperfield as written by Charles Dickens;inspired by MTM). Or at least this ACCOUNT will, perhaps, have a reflection on whether I'm going to be the hero in my own life.

In restless dreams I walked alone, narrow streets of cobblestone
Neath the halo of a streetlamp, I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light, split the night
And touched the sound of silence~~~Simon & Garfunkel; The Sound of Silence

St. Louis is near the epicenter of this Great Country. On 28 October 2011 it was Friday Night Lights!!! ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE COMPLETION OF THE GATEWAY ARCHES did transpire the GREATEST WORLD SERIES since the 1975 World Series between the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Red Sox. On a day that in effect constituted the first Double-Header in World Series history, Cinderella was presented her glass slipper!! The drama that lead up to the Cardinals winning this WORLD SERIES would have Bench/Fisk & Co's theatrics, pale by comparison. Freese-Frame's Gateway Arched home run to center field in Game-Six at 12:39AM EST of Friday, is truly one of MLB's ICONIC MOMENTS!! As David Freese was finished rounding-the-bases of his dramatic 11th inning home run, his team-mates came onto the field and starting tearing his attire off of him. Observers were to wonder if his teammates were going to "lay him bare" on the diamond!!

Below is an Associated Press reporter's account of Game Six:

Cards Come Up Trumps
BEN WALKER
ST. LOUIS— The Associated Press
Published Friday, Oct. 28, 2011 12:48AM EDT
Last updated Friday, Oct. 28, 2011 10:35AM EDT

Twice down to their last strike, the St. Louis Cardinals kept rallying to win one of baseball's greatest thrillers.

David Freese completed a startling night of comebacks with a home run leading off the bottom of the 11th inning to beat Texas 10-9 on Thursday, and suddenly fans all over got something they have waited a long time to see: Game 7 in the World Series.“You had to be here to believe it,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said.

It was as great a game as baseball has ever witnessed, rivaling the Carlton Fisk homer in Game 6 of the 1975 Series and Bill Buckner's error in Game 6 of the 1986 Series.

Great, that is, except for Texas. The Rangers were that close to their first championship.

“I understand it's not over till you get that last out,” Texas manager Ron Washington said. “I was just sitting there praying we got that last out. We didn't get it.”

Next up on Friday night, the first Game 7 in the World Series since the Angels beat San Francisco in 2002.

Freese, the hometown boy who made good, had already written himself into St. Louis lore in Game 6 with a two-strike, two-out, two-run triple in the ninth off Rangers closer Neftali Feliz that made it 7-all.

“Initially I was like 'Are you kidding me? My first AB off Feliz in this situation ever,'“ Freese said. “I just beared down, got a pitch to hit. Initially I thought I hit it pretty good, I thought (right fielder Nelson Cruz) was going to grab it, so just a lot of emotions on that one.”

After banged-up Josh Hamilton hit a two-run homer in the Texas 10th, St. Louis again tied it when Lance Berkman hit a two-out single on a 2-2 pitch from Scott Feldman.

Busch Stadium was still in frenzy when Freese opened the 11th with a leadoff shot over the center field wall off Mark Lowe. Freese thrust his arm in the air as he rounded first base, and the crowd was delirious.

“Just an incredible feeling, seeing all my teammates at the dish waiting for me,” said Freese, whose shirt was torn off during the celebration.

A night that started off terribly for both teams turned terrific for everyone watching.

After it was over, La Russa wasn't willing to announce his starter for Game 7 — many believe it will be ace Chris Carpenter on three days' rest. Matt Harrison is set to start for Texas.

Home teams have won the last eight Game 7s in the World Series, a streak that started with the Cardinals beating Milwaukee in 1982.

Texas trudged off the field as Freese circled the bases after connecting off Lowe, having been so close to that elusive title. Much earlier, team president Nolan Ryan was high-fiving friends in the stands as Adrian Beltre and Nelson Cruz opened the seventh with home runs that helped Texas take a 7-4 lead.

Allen Craig's solo homer in the eighth began the Cardinals' comeback. Jake Westbrook wound up with the win.

Hardly the ending anyone imagined in a game that started out with a bevy of errors and bobbles — none more surprising than the routine popup that Freese simply dropped at third base.

“I'm just glad I had a chance after I looked like an idiot on that popup,” Freese said.

The Cardinals made it 4-all in the sixth when Alexi Ogando relieved starter Colby Lewis and walked Yadier Molina with the bases loaded.

Then came a key play — Napoli and Beltre teamed up to pick off Matt Holliday at third with the bases loaded.

With one out, Napoli zipped a throw to Beltre, who neatly used his cleat to block the diving Holliday from reaching the base. That also ended Holliday's night with a severely bruised right pinkie. Texas wasn't quite out of trouble as Nick Punto walked to reload the bases. But Derek Holland, the star of Game 4 with shutout ball into the ninth inning, trotted in from the bullpen and retired Jon Jay on a comebacker.

The Rangers looked loose as they took the field for pregame warmups. Cruz playfully kicked a couple of Cardinals gloves strewn on the grass, and smiled at his St. Louis pals.

Once they started, however, both Texas and St. Louis seemed tense, as if they were trying too hard with so much at stake. Either that, or they looked like they were playing in the sloppy weather that forced Wednesday night's postponement.

Exacerbated by the errors, the teams seesawed through the early innings.

Texas did more damage in three batters against Jaime Garcia than it did in seven scoreless innings against him in Game 2, with Hamilton hitting an RBI single in the first.

St. Louis came out swinging at first pitches, and Berkman's two-run homer into the center field bleachers made it 2-1 in the bottom half. Ian Kinsler tied it in the Texas second with an RBI double. Garcia was pulled after the third in his shortest outing since June 2010.

Shaky in the field all year, St. Louis made two errors in a span of four batters in the fourth behind reliever Fernando Salas, equaling its mistake total for the Series.

Holliday failed to take charge on an easy fly ball by Cruz and dropped it for a two-base error. Napoli followed with an opposite-field single to right that hit the chalk line for his 10th RBI of the Series. Salas then sailed Lewis' bunt into center and Napoli turned his left ankle as he went leg into the bag on the play. Napoli was checked, and was OK.

The misplays continued in the Cards fourth when first baseman Michael Young made an errant throw to Lewis covering the base, letting Berkman reach. Molina's RBI grounder made it 3-all.

The next botch belonged to St. Louis. Hamilton lifted a major league popup in the fifth that started foul, drifted fair and was dropped by Freese. Young took advantage with an RBI double for a 4-3 lead.

Notes: Texas was 0 for 11 with two outs and runners in scoring position in the Series until Kinsler's double. ... Berkman hit his first Series home run. He was moved up a spot to cleanup for this game. ... David Eckstein, MVP of the 2006 Series for St. Louis, threw out the first ball. ... 90-year-old Hall of Famer Stan Musial rode in on a golf cart during pregame festivities. ... The crowd of 47,325 was a record for 6-year-old Busch Stadium.


From the CRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR!!! If the CSM is writing about the World Series, you know this has to be~~~extraordinary!!

World Series history: Cardinals over Texas Rangers in 11 is instant classic

Twice the Texas Rangers were within an out of winning the World Series. But the Cardinals came back in dramatic fashion, and David Freese's walk-off in the 11th grabbed a bit of history. There's a new rival for the title of most thrilling Game 6 in World Series history, and new rival for the title of hero.

At the very least, the 11-inning win by the St. Louis Cardinals is an instant classic, one that enters the top tier of postseason epics.

The game twice took the Texas Rangers within one strike of a world championship. It took fans of both teams on an emotional roller coaster. And it is taking the bat and the shredded jersey of David Freese, who homered to win the game and keep Cardinal hopes alive for a Game 7, to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

It was baseball at its white-knuckle, goose-bump finest.

Part comedy of errors, part battle of managerial wits, and no small part a show of performance under pressure.

A recap of the drama: The teams battled to a 4-4 tie by the dawn of the seventh inning, when the Rangers mustered three-run rally. The Cardinals appeared all but doomed when they closed out the eighth inning still two runs down, missing a bases-loaded opportunity.

All the Rangers had to do was have their closer, Neftali Feliz, get three more outs. The first Rangers title ever would be theirs. And Feliz almost accomplished the job. But in the ninth, with two outs and two men on base, Freese tripled to tie the game and send it into extra innings. The Rangers answered with two runs in the top of the 10th.

Again, in the bottom of the inning, the Cardinals came down to their last out. Berkman's single to center field evened up the game yet again, paving the way for an 11th inning after both teams had already worked through most of their available pitchers.

Freese's walk-off home run in the bottom of the inning finished the game. As he struggled to touch home plate amid a swarm of team-mates (one of whom ripped his jersey apart), two things were clear to anybody watching. There would need to be a decisive Game 7. And wow, what a game that was.

So where should this game rest in the baseball pantheon?

Certainly it's up there on a top-hits list, when it comes to multi-act drama in a potentially decisive World Series game. (This wasn't a one-man or one-team show of force, like Don Larsen pitching a perfect game midway through the 1956 World Series.)

That said, let's admit that in baseball's long history, there have been more than a handful of remarkable games that ended or nearly ended the championship series.

It's hard to argue that this one tops the best Game 7s, such as those of 1960 (with Bill Mazeroski's home run for Pittsburgh), 1991 (with Jack Morris's 10-inning shutout for Minnesota), or 1924 (a 12-inning epic). Fans of the game could toss in a number of other favorites.

And what about Carlton Fisk? His 12th-inning home run for the Red Sox in 1975 was another instance of a team fending off doom – in this case the threat that the "Big Red Machine" of Cincinnati would win the Series that night. The Boston catcher famously waved the ball fair, as it veered toward the left-field foul pole in Fenway Park.

To Boston fans and many others, that was unforgettable. To many baseball fans today, Freese's shot holds a candle to it.

The Cardinals' win represents just the third time that a team one out from elimination in the World Series came back to win the game, the Associated Press reports, citing STATS LLC. The New York Mets did it in 1986 (and won the championship in the next game), and the New York Giants did it in 1911, but ended up losing the series.

Indeed, the comparison with Game Six in 1975 reinforces the reminder: The winner of a legendary game isn't always the winner of the Series. The Sox lost to the Reds back then. It remains to be seen what will happen in Game 7 between the Cardinals and Rangers Friday night.

If the Cardinals win, the prominence of this Game 6 will ratchet a notch higher.


The Deciding Game Seven account~~~below, from The Sporting News:

ST. LOUIS—At some point when the Cardinals, their families and friends were romping around Busch Stadium Friday night, Lance Berkman pulled Albert Pujols aside and pleaded, "Come back. Let's do this again."

Though Pujols would not commit, Berkman could not have picked a better time to make his pitch.

The Cardinals had just won Game 7 of the World Series, 6-2 over the Rangers to complete perhaps the most incredible stretch in baseball history.


In the past two months, the Cardinals overcame a 10 1/2-game deficit in the playoff race to win the franchise's 11th World Series championship.

So what did Pujols tell his teammate?

"The same thing I'm going to tell you," Pujols said. "Whatever decision I make is hopefully the best decision for my family and the fans and everybody. To talk about my contract right now is the last thing I'm thinking about. I'm just going to enjoy the moment."

Give the man that much. As he sat at the interview podium with son A.J. along with Chris Carpenter and his two children, Pujols had many moments to soak in.
David Freese was named the World Series MVP. (AP Photo)

There was the late-August players' only meeting that fueled a 22-9 surge that led to clinching the NL wild card on the season's final day.

There was the Game 2 rally from a 4-0 deficit against Cliff Lee and the Phillies and Carpenter's 1-0 masterpiece against Roy Halladay that sent the Cardinals to the NLCS.

There were Pujols' four extra-base hit performance in the NLCS, and his three-homer, five-hit record night in Game 3 of the World Series.

There were nightly hitting heroics from World Series MVP David Freese and Allen Craig, and shutdown performances from the bullpen throughout the NLCS.

And don't forget the comeback of all comebacks in Game 6 of the World Series, when the Cardinals twice were within one strike of being finished, but pulled out a 10-9, 11-inning victory.

"This is what you dream about," manager Tony La Russa said. "It's hard to really imagine it actually happened."

Steering the journey were the two veterans in the interview room, Pujols and Carpenter.

They were among a handful of Cardinals around for the 2006 championship who took extra pleasure in helping all the newcomers become a part of Cardinals' history. This club has some history, too, with its 11 championships second only to the Yankees' 27.

There were plenty of newcomers able to celebrate their first championship, from Berkman to Matt Holliday to Octavio Dotel, Rafael Furcal and 20-year veteran Arthur Rhodes. "To have the opportunity to experience that, with guys that haven't experienced this before that have been around a long time is amazing," Carpenter said.

After years of competing against the Cardinals with the Astros, Berkman had to join the Cardinals to become a champion. The feeling, he said, surpassed his expectations. "Way better," he said as he remained on the field long after the game had ended and the trophy presentation had concluded. "You can't imagine the exhilaration of finally winning, particular in the fashion that we did. It wasn't like we swept four games in four laughers. We had to fight this whole series, this whole postseason."

With as many young players as veterans contributing to the championship has owner Bill DeWitt looking forward to next year.

"The great thing about winning like this with young players is now they have now gone through it," DeWitt said. "They may not have played a lot of years in the big leagues but to have succeeded at this level is a great foundation of future success."

The only hitch, DeWitt sees is the Cardinals being in a new role in 2012. "I feel great about the young players we have. We've re-signed a lot of our veterans who are exceptional players. We feel great about our club in the future.

"We were the underdog in all these series," he said. "But I guess if you're the world champions, you won't be the underdogs."

The architect of the no-longer underdogs roster, GM John Mozeliak, was not quite ready to look at 2012. "We'll enjoy this for 72 hours and then we'll get going," he said.

All of baseball will be watching as the Cardinals try to retain Pujols. Winning a second championship makes it even more difficult to picture Pujols playing elsewhere.

"We never talked about it (during the season)," La Russa said. "Now it's time to start talking about it. The organization is going to try to keep him here and Albert wants to stay here, and best effort, we'll see if it comes off or not."

After this wild ride, seeing Pujols re-up might be the only way to have any more fun than they've had the past two months.

AND~~~From Sporting News as well:

ST. LOUIS— David Freese, the hometown boy made good, is the MVP of the World Series.

Down to their final strike in Game 6, the Cardinals' reluctant hero delivered a tying two-run triple in the ninth inning Thursday night. Freese then did one better: a leadoff homer in the 11th that gave St. Louis a dramatic win over the Rangers and forced the first Game 7 since 2002.

Freese, also the NL championship series MVP, capped his memorable October by hitting a two-run double in the first inning Friday night to tie the Texas Rangers at 2-all. He also drew a pair of walks that helped lead to runs, and the Cardinals held on for a 6-2 win and their 11th championship.

"This means everything," Freese said.

When the final out was made, Freese threw his arms in the air and dashed for the mound, where he joined a happy scrum as confetti floated down from the upper reaches of Busch Stadium.

"This is why you keep battling," Freese said. "Sometimes things don't work out, you get injured, you do stupid stuff, but you try to stay on path. You surround yourself with guys like we have on this team. I'm so glad to be part of this."

Freese batted .348 in the World Series, with seven RBIs, three doubles and one big homer. He's the fourth Cardinals player to win the MVP award, joining Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson in 1964 and '67, catcher Darrell Porter in 1982 and David Eckstein in their 2006 victory over Detroit.

"You learn from all these veterans about how to go about this game," Freese said, "and I wouldn't be here without them."

Freese could just as well be the MVP of the entire postseason.

The kid who grew up in a St. Louis suburb hit a three-run homer in Game 6 of the NLCS against Milwaukee, the first act in his coming out party. His performance in Act 2 against the Rangers made him the sixth player to be MVP of a championship series and the World Series.

Often lost in a high-scoring lineup that includes Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman, Freese left his impression on baseball's grandest stage out of necessity.

Holliday struggled most of the series before spraining his right wrist during Game 6, taking him off the roster Friday. Pujols was intentionally walked whenever he was a threat.

That left the offense to Freese, who had given up on baseball after high school, spurning a scholarship offer from Missouri to simply be a college student. He even rebuffed the Tigers' coaches when they called midway through his first semester to find out whether he'd changed his mind.

It wasn't until about a year out of high school that the itch to play finally returned.
David Freese was named the 2011 World Series MVP. (AP Photo)

Freese gave in and enrolled at St. Louis Community College-Meremec, and his play there caught the attention of the coaching staff at South Alabama. Freese blossomed into the Padres' ninth-round draft pick in 2006, and a trade to the Cardinals eventually brought him home.

"If you wrote a story like that — a guy gets traded, comes back to his hometown, he's a hero — if you sent that in the script, it would get thrown back in your face," Commissioner Bud Selig said.

This wasn't a perfect fairy tale, though. That would be too easy.

Freese needed season-ending surgery to repair a torn tendon in his right ankle last year, and he broke his left hand when he was hit by a pitch earlier this season. He was hit by another pitch in August and sustained a concussion.

Each time, he came back better than before.

He was at his best against Texas.

In the World Series opener, with the game tied in the sixth inning, Freese delivered a timely double. He alertly moved to third base on a wild pitch, allowing him to score easily for the eventual winning run on Allen Craig's single to right field.

Freese scored the Cardinals' only run in a 2-1 loss in Game 2, and then drove in a pair of runs in a 16-7 victory in Game 3 — a performance that will be forever overshadowed by Pujols' three homers.

Nobody could overshadow Freese in Game 6.

After committing a critical error when an easy popup bounced out of his glove, Freese more than made up for it with his bat. Down to his final strike, his two-run triple in the ninth forced extra innings. In the 11th, he joined Bill Mazeroski, Carlton Fisk, Kirby Puckett and Joe Carter as the only players to hit a game-winning homer in Game 6 or later of a Fall Classic.

That's pretty select company.

Much like the company he'll enjoy as MVP of the World Series.

"I've had plenty of days in my life where I'd thought, you know, I wouldn't even be close to being a big leaguer," Freese said. "I'm here because of everyone around me. They put so much trust in me to accomplish, not just baseball, but stuff in life. To do this, I'm just full of joy.



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Hickok
The Promise