World Series 2011 - Historic Game 6 and series

ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- Fans climbed the bronze statue outside of Busch Stadium on Friday night to have their picture taken at the feet of Stan "The Man" Musial as the celebration roiled and rocked around them. On the base of the statue are engraved these words, "Here stands baseball's perfect warrior. Here stands baseball's perfect knight."
 
The days of perfect knights in baseball have gone the way of Camelot and King Arthur's round table. But what about a World Series of perfect nights? If not perfect, then seven that range from good to great?

Maybe Friday's Game 7, in which St. Louis clinched its 11th World Series title with a 6-2 victory over Texas, fell flat. But we will always have Game 6, in which Texas dropped five leads, which meant St. Louis rallied five times before finally winning, 10-9, on David Freese's leadoff homer in the 11th to avoid elimination and make Friday night a reality.

The Nineth: 98 mph Neftali Feliz and David Frese HR

It wasn't just Freese's walkoff homer that made the night, it was his game-tying, season-saving, two-run, two-out, two-strike triple off a 98 mph fastball from Neftali Feliz in the ninth inning.

Turns out that was just the appetizer.

The Tenth: God Told Me and the Lance of Destiny

In the top of the 10th, on a mission from God, Josh Hamilton hit a two-run homer off closer Jason Motte to put Texas back in front, 9-7. Hamilton told reporters after the game that God told him he was going to homer in Game 6.

"But he didn't say we'd win," Hamilton conceded. 

In the bottom of the 10th, with Texas still leading, 9-8, the Cardinals were once again down to their final strike. Scott Feldman had a 2-2 count on Lance Berkman, who was not enjoying himself.
"It's not fun to go up there with the season on the line," said Berkman.

He put his feelings aside long enough to bloop a single into center field to tie the score and ensure that Freese would get a chance to bat in the 11th. When it was over, after Freese sent a 3-2 pitch from Mark Lowe over the center field fence, Berkman had a firm hold on the moment
.
"The reality is that if we don't win Game 7, then this just becomes a footnote to a nice season," said Berkman. "But if we win, this is the stuff of legends."

The Eleventh

Enough said. This joins Joe Carter (1993), Kirby Puckett (1991), Carlton Fisk (1975) as one of the best Game 6 of the World Series with memorable walkoff HRs, short of Game 7 Bill Mazeroski (1960) legend.

No burning cars

The Cardinals, who didn't make the postseason until the final day of the regular season, can consider themselves legends. Their fans certainly do. The St. Louis faithful were still packed into Musial Plaza at least two hours after the game. When a Cardinals official walked by carrying the World Series trophy along the second deck of the ballpark, they spotted him and cheered.
 
The crowd snaked along Stadium Drive, up to Mike Shannon's Bar and Grill. The joint wasn't just packed, it was overflowing into an elbow-to-elbow crowd on the street. Music blared, cops and beer cans were everywhere. A guy on a makeshift set of drums pounded away.

Market Street, a main drag through the heart of downtown, was at a standstill going and coming. Cars were bumper-to-bumper blowing their horns. People walking up and down the exchanging high fives with strangers. The police had portions of the street blocked off, but no one seemed to mind.
It was loud and friendly. No cars were burning. The Cardinals have been to 18 World Series. This was their second title in five years. They know how to celebrate.
 
Said Freese, "These fans are the best."
 
Freese not only won the World Series MVP, but the NLCS MVP as well. In the World Series he hit .348 (8-for-24) with three doubles, one triple, one homer and seven RBI. In the postseason, he hit .397 (25-for-63) with eight doubles, one triple, five homers and a record 21 RBI. If he didn't get the World Series MVP, St. Louis was going to give him The Arch.
 
Now for the topper. Freese grew up just outside of St. Louis rooting for the Cardinals. When they acquired him from San Diego for Cardinal icon Jim Edmonds, his buddies kept asking him, "Who else did we get for Edmonds?"

Was Game 6 the greatest World Series game ever played? Maybe, but St. Louis did make three errors in the early going.

Pujols, Reggie and the Babe/ Pujols, Matsui and Bobby Richardson

While that is a debatable matter, there can be no denial that Albert Pujols' performance in Game 3 was the best single offensive game in World Series history. Not only was he just the third man in World Series history to hit three homers in one game, he had five hits, six RBI and 14 total bases.

The homers, hits and RBI tied World Series records. The 14 total bases set a World Series record.
Game 7 could have been Pujols' last as a Cardinal. He's a free agent this winter, which means the soap opera will soon begin. Before Game 7, Commissioner Bud Selig said he hoped that Pujols stayed in St. Louis.

After Friday's game, Pujols was asked about his plans. "I'm just going to enjoy the moment," he said.
Regarding the 107th World Series, he'll have a lot of company.

World Series Game 5 - This kind of thing is supposed to happen to the Tribe, not the stately Cardinals as they try to win their 11th World Series championship.

ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- For the second straight day manager Tony La Russa came bearing answers to explain how his Cardinals lost Game 5 of the World Series Monday night.

No matter how much he talked, or how eloquently he pleaded his case, St. Louis is still facing elimination Wednesday night in Game 6 at Busch Stadium.

All this because of a couple of phone conversations between La Russa and bullpen coach Derek Lilliquist in Arlington went terribly wrong. It's so confusing, and so unexpected of the precise and detailed La Russa, that at any minute a new version of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" routine could break out.

Here's what happened.

The 8th: Rzepczynski and Motte

In a game tied at 2-2, Michael Young opened the eighth with a double off Cardinals reliever Octavio Dotel, who struck out Adrian Beltre and intentionally walked Nelson Cruz after a visit by pitching coach Dave Duncan.

While that was going on, La Russa said he called Lilliquist and told him to get lefty Marc Rzepczynski and righty Jason Motte ready. Lilliquist heard Rzepczynski's name, but said he never heard La Russa say Motte.

"The first mention of Motte was probably after he (Lilliquist) hung up," said La Russa. "Maybe I didn't say it quickly enough."

Weird Hop and bounce

Rzepczynski replaced Dotel to face lefty David Murphy. On cue, Murphy sent a potential double-play ball back to the mound, but it took a weird hop and bounced off Rzepczynski's body for a hit, loading the bases. La Russa's next move was to bring in Motte, who can throw close to 100 mph, to face Mike Napoli, the Rangers' right-handed power-hitting catcher.

Lance 'emergency' Lynn, Rzepcynski and Motte
Before heading to the mound, La Russa looked into the Cardinals bullpen and didn't see Motte throwing. He called Lilliquist again to get Motte ready. But Lilliquist thought La Russa requested Lance Lynn, another right-hander. Lynn wasn't supposed to pitch except for an emergency.
La Russa was caught.

"There is no way you can stall long enough to get him ready," said La Russa, even though it was Lynn, not Motte, who was starting to loosen.

So Rzepczynski had to face Napoli, who hit .319 against lefties during the regular season. Napoli doubled into the right-field gap on a 1-1 pitch to score two runs. After Rzepczynski struck out Mitch Moreland, La Russa went to the mound thinking Motte was finally going to enter the game.
Wrong again.

'Emergency' Lynn emerges

As La Russa waited on the mound, Lynn jogged in from the pen.

"When he got to the mound, I said, 'What are you doing here?'" said La Russa.

He then ordered Lynn to intentionally walk Ian Kinsler to reload the bases because he didn't want to risk Lynn injuring his arm. At last, he was able to hand the ball to Motte, who struck out Elvis Andrus. Not only was it too little, but it was far too late.

La Russa took the blame.

"I told Derek, 'Believe me, this is not your problem,'" said La Russa.

But the fact that Lilliquist at one time pitched for the Indians seems to put things into perspective. This kind of thing is supposed to happen to the Tribe, not the stately Cardinals as they try to win their 11th World Series championship.

All in all, this was not a postseason game that covered La Russa in glory.

The Cardinals stranded 12 runners and went 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position. Texas pitchers tied a World Series record by issuing four intentional walks, three to Albert Pujols. Every time Texas manager Ron Washington displayed four fingers, he escaped without a run being scored.

Who should call 'Hit-and-Runs'?

The 7th: The game offered a revealing look at how much freedom Pujols has under La Russa. Allen Craig walked with one out in the seventh against Alexi Ogando. Pujols flashed him the hit-and-run sign. Craig took off on the next pitch and was thrown out by Napoli. Pujols didn't offer at the high fastball from Ogando and was intentionally walked for the third time.

"Albert has had the ability for several years to put the hit-and-run on," said La Russa.
La Russa said Pujols has earned that because of his talent and baseball smarts. It will be interesting to see if Pujols gets the same freedom should he bolt St. Louis through free agency.

The 9th: In the ninth, it was La Russa, not Pujols, who called for a run-and-hit with Craig on first and Pujols batting. Trailing, 4-2, he was trying to create a first-and-third situation with no outs. Instead La Russa ended up with a strike-'em out, throw 'em-out double play.

It was that kind of night.

On Twitter: @hoynsie

Irabu Got Lost on the Road Back - NY Times

By KEN BELSON Published: October 8, 2011 It was the kind of inquiry that curious pitchers make, even ones with World Series rings. How, Hideki Irabu wanted to know, do you throw a changeup? Jerry Spradlin, his pitching coach on the Long Beach Armada in the spring of 2009, was all too happy to show him. A former journeyman major league reliever, he was a newcomer to coaching and was eager to share some of what he knew, even something as basic as a changeup with a pitcher once called the Nolan Ryan of Japan. The lesson was impromptu and informal, typical of the way things were done on the Armada, an independent league team that served as a halfway house for older players making last-ditch comebacks and younger players still hoping to make it as professionals. With the help of an interpreter, Spradlin showed the grip to Irabu, who threw about 10 warm-up pitches in the bullpen before his start that day. Even though he was 40 and a former Yankee, Irabu was an attentive student. He was also a quick study. He struck out the side in order during the first inning using his new pitch to put away the batters. “He clearly had something left in the tank,” Spradlin said with a chuckle. As per tradition at Armada games, the fans passed the hat to reward players for their feats. Irabu had made millions during his career and did not need the $300 that reached the dugout. Some players wanted to give it back to the fans while others thought they should split it among themselves. Garry Templeton, the team’s manager, felt otherwise. He told Irabu where the money had come from, and without hesitation, Irabu told him it should be spent on food and beer for the team. The clubhouse attendant was dispatched to a store for provisions. “We had a party on him,” Templeton said. Two years later, Irabu, 42, was found hanging in his house in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., an upscale Los Angeles suburb. At some level, all suicides are mysteries. Irabu apparently left no note, but he had his troubles. He was known to drink heavily at times. His wife and two children had moved out weeks before. His two noodle restaurants had closed, and he was casting about for something else to do. “When I saw him last summer, he told me he was having a midlife crisis,” said George Rose, who befriended Irabu when he worked for two years as his interpreter on the Yankees. Rose then repeated what had been a kind of conventional wisdom about the Irabu: he had a big heart, but could be his own worst enemy. Irabu, for sure, had seemed to battle demons throughout his meteoric rise and fall. A No. 1 draft pick in Japan, he was best known for his record-setting fastball, and his temper off the field. Even during his best years in the mid-1990s, he had a love-hate relationship with the news media, which needled him by writing about his mixed heritage, a taboo in Japan. He called some Japanese reporters locusts. He was eager to play in the United States, but he bucked the baseball establishment by refusing to be traded to the San Diego Padres, despite their generous contract offer. Instead, he held out until the Yankees could sign him, and he received a hero’s welcome in New York. He twice was named the American League pitcher of the month, but he faded late in seasons. His moodiness, injuries and weight problems led George Steinbrenner to call him a fat toad, a stinging tag that he could not shake. He returned to Japan in 2003 and helped the Hanshin Tigers win the Central League pennant for the first time in nearly two decades, a redemption of sorts. But the next year, the injuries piled up and he retired after pitching in three games. His time with the Armada in 2009, then, turned out to be Irabu’s last attempt to recapture his love of the game and to fulfill some of his unmet expectations. But like many things Irabu did, his time on the Armada came with conditions. He was with the team only on days when he pitched, and he went to those games with a personal assistant and an interpreter. Because of his limited English, his teammates had little sense of Irabu as a person. Some of the players, chiefly those who had never had a whiff of the major leagues, were in awe of Irabu nonetheless. But they could also be irked that Irabu kept his distance. “To get to know him as a teammate or friend was nearly impossible,” said Scott Lonergan, a starting pitcher that year who now works as a scout with the Padres. “He didn’t come off as a prima donna. There was no sense that he was better than anyone. It was a strict business transaction. He would show up, pitch and leave.” A Toss Leads to a Quest Irabu’s road back to baseball began with a bit of serendipity. In 2007, a Japanese television crew visited Irabu in California to see how he was faring nearly three years into his retirement. They visited his restaurants, followed him as he rode his three-wheel motorbike and filmed him on a sandlot field in Torrance, obligingly tossing a ball in jeans and flip flops. Irabu had not pitched in several years, but he seemed genuinely pleased that his knee did not hurt and that his arm felt good. The pitching session was brief, but it planted a seed in Irabu’s mind that he might just have a shot at returning to baseball, according to Don Nomura, his longtime agent. “He just picked up a ball and fired the hell out of it,” Nomura said by phone from Japan. Nomura did not give it much thought, but a year or so later, Irabu started working out with two other players. Takateru Iyono, who was Irabu’s teammate in Japan, traveled to Los Angeles to seek guidance from his sempai, or elder, on how to revive his career. They recruited Hajime Nishimura, who had played on a Japanese industrial league team and moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, to be a personal catcher. He now is a youth baseball coach. While training with Iyono at the M.L.B. Urban Youth Academy in Compton, a gritty part of Los Angeles, Irabu began to take his conditioning more seriously. Tentative at first, he gained confidence when his knee showed no signs of faltering. So in early 2009, with Iyono having left, Irabu picked up the pace. Each weekday, he took two half-hour whirlpool baths in the morning. Nishimura would arrive at 10 a.m. to work on fielding and pitching for two hours. Then they would go for a vegetable-heavy lunch before Irabu returned to the academy to take another bath. The regimen helped Irabu shed more than 40 pounds, buoying his spirits. “At first, I wondered if he could do it,” Nishimura said. “But he was very serious about baseball. He loved the game and didn’t think about how old he was. As long as he could play, he wanted to play.” With the season approaching, Nomura discussed the options with Irabu. It would be hard to find a major league club in the United States that would sign an aging pitcher who had not played in years. But with his mix of pitches, big-league savvy and brand name, Nomura thought that Irabu could become a useful reliever in Japan. The easiest shot at reaching that goal would be for Irabu to showcase his talents in an independent league, where the barriers for entry were lower and teams and fans were used to seeing aging stars give it one last go. The Golden Baseball League was the best fit. Each team had a handful of former major leaguers. The league also had links to Japan, including the Samurai Bears, a traveling team that had been stocked with Japanese players and managed by Warren Cromartie, a former major leaguer who played for the Yomiuri Giants. Always on the lookout for budding talent regardless of the potential guffaws, the league recruited Eri Yoshida, a Japanese teenager known as the Knuckle Princess for her signature pitch. She pitched last season in Maui, Hawaii. The league also had teams in Orange County and Long Beach, which would allow Irabu to live at home during his comeback. So in April, Nomura’s Los Angeles-based assistant, Toshi Hoshino, set up a tryout with Templeton. The session went well. “He wasn’t throwing 98 anymore, but he had the experience and the other pitches,” said Kevin Outcalt, the commissioner of the league, which also owned the Armada. “You don’t often get a player of his caliber.” A Pop-In Pitcher Outcalt was so impressed that he agreed to a contract that allowed Irabu to show up only on days when he pitched at home games. It would force Templeton to find an extra starter when the team was on the road, and knock other pitchers one game back in the rotation when they returned home. Still, Outcalt thought that the concessions were worth it because Irabu, he hoped, would be a big draw, especially with Japanese fans in the Los Angeles area. That could help the struggling club. It was a standard formula: mix hungry young players with a sprinkling of recognizable former major leaguers, add theatrics and keep prices affordable. In fact, Rickey Henderson spent a season in the league and Jose Canseco had played on the Armada, which used Blair Field, an aging stadium in Long Beach. Irabu’s teammates were paid depending on their experience, with some of the highest salaries hitting about $1,500 a month. Many players had not been drafted out of college and needed a place to play until they could be noticed by a major league organization. That meant playing in front of small crowds in places like Chico, Calif., and Yuma, Ariz. Despite their grumbling, no players were openly hostile to Irabu. His teammates recall that Irabu would show up an hour or so before his scheduled starts and disappear from the clubhouse before the last out. Some players spotted him between innings smoking cigarettes in the shower. When he was on the bench, few players had more than passing conversations with him, even though Nishimura was there to interpret. Sean Buller, a pitcher on the team who became the pitching coach halfway through the season, said no one on the team directly challenged Irabu and his seeming diffidence. Everyone, he said, had their own hopes, and did not want them damaged by possibly causing dissension. Despite the enigmatic attitude, Buller said of Irabu, “I feel bad because we never got close.” Good-Natured Needling The only teammate who felt compelled to communicate with Irabu was Jose Lima, a former all-star pitcher on the Los Angeles Dodgers who was also attempting a comeback. In many ways, he was Irabu’s polar opposite: funny, lively, involved and generous. He would sing the national anthem before his starts, take teammates to Dodgers games, serenade them with his guitar and chart their pitches on his days off. He was perhaps the only person with enough stature to needle Irabu, and he did not miss the chance. About an hour before the Armada were to play the Scorpions in Yuma, Irabu had still not shown up. (Irabu pitched twice on the road because the parks were within driving distance of his home.) Typically, the manager or coach would give that night’s starting pitcher the ball to be used to start the game. It was a bit of ceremony, but Irabu was nowhere to be seen that night. So Lima took the ball, put it in a clear plastic baggie, taped it to the clubhouse wall and wrote, Irabu #?, on the tape. Irabu chuckled when he showed up, then he threw five innings, gave up four runs and struck out six to earn the win. Another time, someone left a sign at Irabu’s locker that had a picture of two Japanese businessmen laughing with the words, ROR: Raugh out Roud. Some said Irabu got the joke. The club tried to make the most of Irabu’s occasional, mercurial presence. Josh Feldman, who organized on-field entertainment at home games, invited some Japanese drummers to perform as part of an Irabu Mania night. At another game, performers from a local martial arts academy broke boards, including some that they had set on fire. In Japan, One Last Chance By early August, Irabu had compiled a respectable but not overwhelming record given the competition. In 10 starts, he was 5-3 with a 3.58 earned run average and 66 strikeouts in 65 1/3 innings. Like his time in the major leagues, Irabu had some games in which he was unhittable, and other games when his control eluded him. Still, after several years away from organized baseball, he was happy to be back in uniform and on the field. “He was having a good time and enjoyed playing baseball again,” said Hoshino, who videotaped his starts from behind home plate. “He was really excited to take the next step.” That next step came partly as a result of Japanese reporters who had come to see Irabu pitch in Long Beach. He received an offer to pitch for the Fighting Dogs in Kochi, on the island of Shikoku, a backwater by Japanese baseball standards. Independent leagues are relatively new in Japan, where high schools, colleges and industrial leagues provide most of the young talent for the top teams. Even so, Irabu’s reputation in Japan was still strong, so he stood a better chance of catching the attention of a Japanese big-league club by playing in Kochi than if he remained in California. It was a brief stay. His first start went as well as could be expected. In seven innings, he gave up three runs, walking five and striking out three. About three times the usual crowd showed up for the game, and replica Irabu jerseys and shirts were on sale. His second start was a step back. Irabu lasted five innings and gave up five runs. Afterward, an inflamed right thumb effectively ended his season and, it turned out, his professional baseball career and his time in the public’s eye. With baseball now a fading memory, Irabu returned to Los Angeles, where he looked for things to do. Coaching was one option, but without a strong command of English, he had a hard time finding work. He appeared occasionally at clinics and talked of getting into movies someday. But none of it amounted to much. Earlier this year, his wife and two children moved out of their home. They had become acculturated to American life, leaving him more isolated, friends said. And he never picked up a baseball for the Armada again. “He was kind of searching for what to do next,” said George Rose, his old interpreter, “and he never did.”