Was That the Best Baseball Game you Ever Saw?
I find it rather amusing that the first World Series game (this year) that I watched from start to finish was last night’s game. I actaully had to turn it off after the 10th (life got in the way) but I got up early this am and watched the 11th…..
This box score is ridiculous.
Chuck might have had an easier time scoring in a whorehouse than either of those teams had in throwing up a shut down inning. Easy, I said *might*…..
This was NOT the best game I have ever seen. Any game with that many errors and miscues and horrible pitching can’t fall into a category of anything *best* unless you’re talking about *worst*. But in terms of excitement and clutch hitting from start to finish, that was the most exciting baseball game I have ever seen. I have been rooting half heartedly for Texas but I caught myself rooting for St Louis at least 3 times from the 7th inning on….
I found several of Washington’s moves questionable but none seemed to really backfire badly until the last inning. The only scenario that I can put together for why Feldman went to the on deck circle and then finally got pulled for German is this: Cruz had a noticeable limp coming off the field at the end of the 10th. I think Wash wanted to keep Feldman in the game but for some reason didn’t find out that Cruz was done until Feldman literally got announced in the on deck circle. Then he had to go with German. Pulling your last reliable reliever for your worst to get a pinch hitter into the game with 2 outs and a guy on FIRST BASE makes no sense at all. We’ll see what story gets told about that weird sequence………
If you’re David Freese you are waking up this morning a unique hero. A hometown dude, down to his last strike, saves the game in the 9th and then wins it in the 11th with a walk off bomb? That’s a cheesy, made up Hollywood movie……….
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
One of the most exciting I have ever seen. I am hugely biased, but our Game 6 vs. the Phillies last year needs more credit as an absolute classic. Sanchez and Oswalt were both shaky to start but each made up for things with key hits of their own. The Sanchez meltdown and near brawl set the stage for the impromptu Affeldt, Bumgarner, Lopez brilliance. Uribe’s stunning home run was followed by the exhilarating camera shot to Lincecum, standing in the bullpen, arms folded and ready to nail it. When he couldn’t do it, Wilson saved the day — his style with runners on and throwing the most beautiful called third strike in SF Giants history.
As for last night, I have no interest in either team, but as a baseball fan I felt the tension for both teams. The visceral feeling of desperation, hope, relief and elation brought back all the memories of our championship run. It was a poorly played and managed game (don’t forget LaRussa ran out of position players by the 10th inning), but it was the type of game that reminds us why baseball eats at our soul.
The best part, we are still Defending Champions for one more day.
the German PH appearance, as I said, was weird given the fact that there were 2 outs and a guy on FIRST base. But what was equally hard to understand was the NOT PHing of Lewis in the 5th when the bases were loaded. He gave that scoring opportunity to score with a stocked bullpen waiting in the wings….
Best baseball game I ever saw?
November 1, 2010…
Washington’s most egregious error, as noted by many, was in not sending his best reliever (Feliz ) back out after reclaiming the lead. But he’ll never come close to claiming dunderhead manager of the series after Mumblin’ Tony’s epic work in Game 5…
Best game? Far from it. It was exciting as hell, but the defense was atrocious. The pitching was all over the place as well. When Texas didn’t score in the top of the 11th I figured it to be over. Cruz drifted back slowly on the Freese ball that fell for a triple. Pulled hammy or not, he was playing deep, AND the ball didn’t even reach the fence. It bounced. No way that ball should drop.
Fave games remain the Atl win when down to our last strike, Timmy’s 14 K performance, the Rent game, just about all the playoff wins last year.
If La Russa wins tonight, and it looks like he’s putting Carpenter in on 3 days, the phone fiasco and the botched hit-and-runs will all be forgotten. I think Texas pounds the shit out of StL tonight, though.
Feliz looked dumbfounded that the fly ball from Freese dropped.
Well, he was hardly an innocent bystander.
Still, it was a fricking can of corn. 99.5% of the OFers in the game make that catch.
It was indeed one of the most exciting games ever, in the same sense as the Titanic’s maiden vogage was the most exciting boat ride…As much as I want to like the guy, Captain Smith, uh, Washington, makes so many tactical errors that it defintely affects the outcome consistently. Having said that, I really want Texas to win this, perhaps when Tony mistakenly brings Nick Punto in to close..
I been saying, tough to watch the errors and poor pitching, coaching and only some great hitting and root for either of these teams. Like aiming a run away horse and hoping it hits the tunnel and not the mountain.
I have a good friend who is a cardinal all the way and I am happy as hell for him. I am about to start the espn replay of last night’s live game. for the first time in a long time the morning news had a baseball item, spoiler, but I will watch anyway.
this morning’s news announcer’s complete baseball story: ‘And in baseball David Freese had the winning hit as St. Louis defeated Houston 10 to 9 forcing a final game’.
that was it, but musta been a slow news day to get that much baseball news on the air in the UK.
Opps, game’s starting
I was at work and could only catch it in spurts, although I did watch the two Cards’ rallies. Is Washington really that bad? I could hear my colleagues — and we’re all pulling for the Rangers — unleashing an endless stream of profanities toward Washington throughout the night, especially for letting Lewis hit in the 5th. And that play by Cruz: for some reason, I could only think of Candy Maldonado. Just a brutal loss for the Rangers. They’ll have to channel their inner 1975 Reds to nail it down tonight.
I’d like them to take it, but I think the Rangers have a snowball’s chance tonight.
If Wash starts Livan over Woody, then they have no shot…
I was gonna ask. The 1975 Reds were the last team to win a game 7 on the road?
See Twin below. I was thinking more along the lines of coming back to win Game 7 on the road after a crushing loss in Game 6.
Pittsburgh 1979.
Chuck, the ball Freese hit in the 9th was hardly a *can of corn*. It was a line drive that could have been caught. I don’t think we should assign a loss to the Rangers tonight just because our 2002 crew fell apart and couldn’t step up in Game 7. Everyone is different, there’s no reason to connect anything psychological from the 2002 team to this current Rangers team.
I’m really looking forward to tonight, I think it’s going to be another high scoring game……
Of the last 8 WS game sevens, the home team won 7 of the 8…
ARF!
That’s been reported several hundred times since last night.
So there’s several hundred and one…
Well, it wasn’t that hard to catch either. Shit, Cruz was playing back anyway. He slows down and the ball sails over his head. That’s a goddamn little league mistake.
Line drive? Hardly. It was a high fly ball.
BLEEP!
If I am Nolan Ryan, I would have had to leave the stadium without going to the club house, being one of the best pitchers in Baseball and to watch the 9th and 10th innings must have been very painful. If I was him would have been tempted to fire the closer on the spot!! But I am not Nolan Ryan so the closer is safe
Without being biased which would everyone here rather see. A high scoring games of this world series or the pitching gems of last years WS?? I like pitching gems myself.
ARF wins.
Twice last night, I believe in 2 different innings, TX was one strike away from winning the World Series. Flashback to ’86 Red Sox and, sorry to say, ’02 Giants.. when you have the chance to win it all in game 6 like that, on the road, and you don’t, well… If I was a bettin’ man, I’d bet on St. Louis tonight. But I’m not, so I’ll be pulling for TX. Couldn’t possibly pull for a team whose manager and coaching staff melted down so completely as they did two games ago. I’m still shaking my head over that fiasco.
this was a well hit, opposite field ball that Cruz misjudged BECAUSE it was so hard hit. It was a catchable, no doubt. Had it been hit softer, he probably would have caught it. It’s clear from the way he was running, he didn’t think it was hit as hard or as far as it was hit. Calling it a “can of corn” is just not accurate…..
OK, it was a can of chowdah . . .
The point being, he slowed down when he shouldn’t have, and let it go over his head.
A little league mistake.
He misplayed the ball but the pitcher hardly gets a fucking pass. It would have been a good play on a hard hit ball. If Felizs’ reaction was because Cruz missed it, Feliz should be ashamed- the inning was his fault.
Feliz has started to remind me of Valverde. Somehow has had great stats, but not really as solid as the numbers seems to indicate.
As far as Feldman going back out for the 11th, if you look at the video, the guy was practically, if not actually, hyperventilating before Berkman’s hit. Maybe that’s the way he always is, I dunno.
Twin– I did notice how nervous he looked. But he was still the best reliever they had. Lowe sucks.
Well, it didn’t long for Lowe for show that he sucked, did it?
All the momentum is with St. Louis. They’re at home.Washington has once again mismanaged his pen. Napoli, Hamilton, and Cruz are hurting. Carpenter vs. Harrison. The conclusion is inescapable: Texas 11-0..
hahahahahahahahaha…Timing, Twin, timing!
Like your post, Magnus, but I tend to agree with Colin Cowherd today on ESPN Radio, “worst” makes the “best.” The ying-yang notion here is that all those foibles add to it, making it the best entertainment. Semantics.Or maybe shemantics. (I don’t even want to pretend what the word shemantics means.) My 14yo daughter and i are very simpatico when it comes to baseball, so even through she had to get up for school some six hours later we stayed up watching. We started around the 7th or 8th. Anyway, yeah, how Hollywood can you get? It’s not that I was rooting for STL, but even a curmudgeon such as myself had to admit the Freese celebration was some show. (Hey, did he really touch home pate? is what my daughter kept asking.) just before his bomb I said, he’s good, he’s hot…but I honestly could not see him hitting a homer. CRAZY. What a game.
Hey Flav, I hadn’t seen any of the Series either . . . Until last night, i.e., friends were in town, so we went to Old Chicago for dinner/drinks and they had most of the televisions tuned to the WS. The place was packed with people cheering each and every play.
As you and quite a few others have pointed out, NO WAY this was the best game ever on TV, but it sure as hell was the MOST ENTERTAINING game I can recall. Sheesh, we ended up staying there through the extra innings and although I don’t drink, everyone else (not named a designated driver) was “bonzoed” by the time the extra inning game ended. Great fun!
back to semantics, “best” does equal most entertaining for many and I get that. As someone, Colin Cowherd again, said, baseball purists can sometimes come off like “oh, the movie was okay, but the book was better,” said with square jaw clenched and pinky out while wearing a silk smoking jacket.
anyway, these commentators slay me with their very narrow lens, very narrow. With all the talk of great games, I heard NO ONE mention game 7 of the 1962 World Series or that Series at all. It was phenomenol, including the several days of rainouts.
and surely Twin’s game, the one with Maz, is a top game, as is 1-0, 1991 win by the Twins, with Jack Morris going 10. May have cited that, rightly so. So, yeah, in terms of purity, a fan’s fan’s game
I heard Colin while working out at the gym this morning and he made sense when he said that . . . He uses the same line of reasoning when he discusses ESPN’s overwhelming tendency to concentrate on East coast baseball teams, saying (paraphrasing), “ESPN is not biased at all . . . we are in the “interest” business – we show what people want to see and that’s the Yankees and Red Sox. “Interest” makes ESPN profits, not showing Tampa Bay, Houston, etc., etc.”
He does the same thing with Football vs. Baseball . . . “ESPN, other networks and most important, American viewers – will always select Football over Baseball.”
OK. Went to dinner and told the owner’s wife at the bar-diner that this is the last day I can wear this WS2010 world Champions hat as a 2010 World Champion. Be sure to tell Mike. (Her husband, co-owner, and rabid Yankees fan.)
Now I will walk our German shepherd-yellow-lab-whatever else-maybe-beagle-or-Rottweiler-or-chow Maggie in the park with that hat on and my brand-new 2010 World Series Celebration (back with roster names) t-shirt.
As I declared a few days ago, I’ve come to realize an important truth: basking need ever end whatsoever for any reason amen period full stop
Agreed. The basking can continue, perhaps at a reduced clip. All that is needed to re-energize the bask-o-meter is another WS win. Here’s hoping that comes well before the 56th anniversary of this most recent champeeeenship…
NFS
[nofuckinshit]
Notice how Elvis and then the Mike Adams were yucking it up during “tense” moments near the end? Were they breezily loose, affecting that? And did it play to the Cardinals, did it motivate them the way Dusty Baker’s giving the ball to Russ Ortiz in 2002 allegedly motivate the Angels? Or is that all a bunch of Nipper BLEEP?
DZ, come back here.
Regarding No Talent’s POTD, as I’ve chronicled here, since I was in Philly AT THE BALLET, getting text updates, as did at the locals, I hardly knew how dramatic that story was, until I watched it later on DVD.
But, oh, the silky sweet whipped-cream frosting memory of standing with my youngest at the bar in the downtown Marathon restaurant when Ryan Howard took the called third strike, and we could not bottle it up anymore and yelped like, like, like GIANTS fans delirious!
Freese just hit his triple to tie and the cameras showed a woman in full cardinals gear and full bawling mode.
Ugly game, but putting yourself in the cardinal fan’s shoes has excitement.
cannot believe all the articles I have read praising this series, self serving audience fodder, IMHO
OMG there is the TX HR
hope this game ends before game 7 starts
my last game until the Giants hit ST.
my 3:29pm post had “full stop” just for you, mate
hahahahaha
yes, in the UK periods are for girls.
And, for you mate, I will never; mostly ever; mis-punctuate.
Carpenter and other Cards were also yukking it up- and that while the Cards were behind in the late and extra innings. I think they were all more incredulous at what was going down than anything else.
Interesting. Didn’t know that. And I bow to you for proper use of “incredulous.” Yes, they, like us, were ill disposed toward believing it could be happening. Incroyable.
Love it . . . Texas (at least right now) has forgotten last night.
maybe not
Pffft!
Like a pin ball game.
yeah, you just have to expect the unexpected now
ferfecksake
and I really do not care for using starters as relievers in this day and age…typically — not always, but typically — backfires
Is that a theorem within the theorem that Dennis hypothesizes about closer? Just wonderin’ . . .
yes no or maybe
I’ll just pencil this in at 10-9 and fill in the winner later..
you beat me to it; I was gonna throw out some shit like 15-13, and you figure it out
a game 7 like this is good for baseball, but I am eternally grateful that 2010 was a heckuva lot calmer than this bit
As I predicted on the rainout day, Hamilton is due. I say he stays hot and has a big, big game.(Already a very nice catch.) Not predicting who wins, though.
Supposedly pitching and defense wins championships. This series blows that out of the water…
Agree Snarkk, especially when you have two teams reenacting “Ten Little Indians.”
Shut the fuck up Tim McCarver.
Fox has the TV contract for the World Series through 2013. So, looks like Buck and McCarver will be pissing people off at least another two years. I rarely hear anybody, anywhere say they like those two, so I don’t get how they continue to be in the booth. The ESPN radio guys are actually pretty good, Orel has some good insights, but is a little too full of himself at times. Valentine doesn’t seem to offer much, so he doesn’t rankle me or impress me. Dan Shulman is fine as the play by play dude…
That’s a designed play? Really?
Nobody talks of Game 7 of 1962.
Want a classic game? Here you go:
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/box-scores/boxscore.php?boxid=196210160SFN
That was a huge inning for Harrison.
Pawlie, I think it’s been pretty well established that Baker giving the ball to Ortiz was no motivator to the Angels because pretty much none of them saw it. I, and a lot of other fans, didn’t see it at the time either. It only became an issue afterwards, as some kind of “jinx,” which is, of course, a total crock. If people believe in jinxes, then they might as well believe in Santa Claus.
BUT having said that- my wife has kidded me a few times about how I chose not to DVR Game 5 of the World Series last year. I swear it wasn’t about jinxes….it really wasn’t….
I wanted a Jack Morris-like reaction from Ortiz when Dusty came to get him…
Carpenter has a bit of that in him. Don’t like the SOB but he’s a “gamer”..
And….the ump blows strike 3, because the pitcher missed the catcher’s target, and maybe the homefield helps the call.
Lucky break for the Cards. After Molina threw away his bat on that 3-1 pitch, I woulda rung him up on that 3-2 on general principles alone. The fact that the pitch was a strike anyways is besides the point.
The ball still hasn’t left the infield. Christmas comes early courtesy of your Texas Rangers.
Rangers giving it away…
I will say this: St. Louis is a fantastic baseball town. My Mom is from there and her sisters lived there until the Senior Citizens Grapes of Wrath drove them west to Arizona. Saw quite a few games when we’d visit. There’s no place this side of Hell more miserable on a hot summmer day but the baseball and BBQ are staples always…
I was pulling for the Rangers, but given the teams that made the playoffs, there could have been worse scenarios. The Yanks and the Phils got eliminated, which was cool. And Boston, of course, didn’t even make the playoffs, which was real cool, too.
Congratulations to the new Champions. I saw the towel waving fans absolutely ecstatic for their Cards and was thinking the same thing Twin said previously (especially after FOX put that scene in slow motion) . . . As much as I dislike La Russa, I can appreciate the city of St. Louis fans and the Cards ownership reciprocating by always putting a good product on the field,
My favorite Card team – Behind Loe Brock and pitcher Bob Gibson, who won 20 games for the first time, the Cardinals won the 1964 World Series over the Yankees, with Gibson named series MVP. I also like the Herzog teams.
In any event, props to the Cards and their fans.
Now we can get on to the bitching about who Sabean didn’t get and who he did get… it’s the second best league in baseball: the Hot Stove League. Bring it on..
So congrats to Cardinals fans, including my brothers and a former boss. The boss, formerly publisher of our division at Random House in the 80s, reconnected with me a year or two ago, and he was one of the first to send me congratulations last year.
Like many of you, if not most, at least mildly rooting for Rangers, for a handful of reasons — none overwhelming — but, heck, the Cardinals have every reason to celebrate how the etched their name into the, ahem, history BOOKS.
Baseball.
…how *they* etched…
All I can say is blehhhhh. Never liked the Cards. Never will. Texas losing 2 in a row really sucks for them. No love lost there either, but still, Nolan’s got to be sick right about now.
Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve neccessarily learned a lot about life, but I did learn not to be out drinking in the woods when the Living Dead are up and about..mistakes can be made, you know? Night all.
My wish for the post season of anybody but Larussa sure turned out well, didn’t it?…