Quite simply, it was the best game you didn't see. Dodgers 11, Padres 10 -- but that doesn't begin to the tell the story. Even though it was definitely one of the best regular season baseball games in recent memory, most Americans missed it -- because they had either long since gone to bed (2:00 AM on the east coast) or long since given up (Dodgers down 9-5 in the ninth).
Even the first eight innings of this game were remarkable. After dropping the previous two games to the Padres and falling out of first place for the first time in a while, the Dodgers started out the game by coughing up four runs in the first inning. No worries, though. Four runs of their own evened things up in the third. The teams then took turns squandering opportunities over the next five innings, highlighted by Nomar Garcíaparra's strikeout with runners on second and third to end the eighth. It had been a good game up until then, but no one in the stadium could have been prepared for what came next.
The Padres took a 6-5 lead into the top of the ninth, then pushed it to 9-5 on the strength of a handful of basehits, a couple sacrifices, and a wild pitch. Right on cue, diehard Dodger fans rushed for the exits like school kids on a Friday afternoon. And then came the bottom of the ninth.
By now you've seen the highlights, heard the recaps, and hopefully made your peace if you were among the thousands of Dodger fans who missed the miracle. It happened like this. First Jeff Kent hit a fly to dead center that barely whispered over the wall. It was nice, but he was really just padding his stats with a meaningless homerun, wasn't he?
Next came J.D. Drew, who rocked a blast more than half-way up the bleachers in right. It was quite a shot, worthy of making the highlight shows, but it was still just 9-7 and Trevor Hoffman was making his way in from the bullpen.
Whether you measure relievers by quantity or quality, Trevor Hoffman is probably the second best closer of all time, and he's been particularly dominant against Los Angeles, notching more than fifty of his 475 career saves against the Dodgers. Even without Hells Bells in the background, the game looked to be over as he strode to the mound to face the formidable duo of Russell Martin and Marlon Anderson.
Martin was decidely unimpressed by the future Hall of Famer. He deposited Hoffman's first pitch deep into the left field stands. 9-8. Could this possibly be happening? Marlon Anderson then stepped in and ripped the first pitch he saw equally deep into the right field stands. 9-9. Really.
The best part of that improbable sequence of events (aside from the fact that the back-to-back/back-to-back trick had only been turned three times before in baseball history) was that even as Anderson was rounding second base, the cameras zoomed in on the unfaithful in the parking lot, exposing them for all the world as they turned around and took their first steps on a walk of shame back through the turnstiles, hoping to catch a whiff of the history they had missed.
But wait, there's more.
Only moments after the euphoria of that impossible improbability, the Dodgers gave up a run in the top of the tenth. Somehow, that 10-9 deficit looked more daunting than 9-5 had twenty minutes ago. As the Dodger nine stood in the field waiting for the third out after that tenth run had scored, they were dead men walking. Yes, they would only be down by a game and a half with almost two weeks to play, but it would be difficult to get past a loss like this. To launch an historic comeback only to fall short in the very next inning? Devastating would've been too soft a word.
And then Kenny Lofton led off the bottom half of the inning with the 886th (and perhaps biggest) walk of his career. This couldn't really be happening, could it? Again?
Nomar stepped up to the plate, the same Nomar who once seemed to be on the fast track to Cooperstown, complete with a letter of recommendation from Ted Williams, who called him the best player ever to play for the Red Sox. He stared out at Rudy Saenez, the one-time Dodger prospect, and got ready for destiny. He went through his usual routine, compulsively tightening his batting gloves before tap-tapping his toes while stirring his bat in the air.
As Nomar pushed the count to three and one, I couldn't believe that Lofton still sat patiently at first, but apparently Dodger manager Grady Little -- the noted tactician -- knew better. It was left to Nomar to drive Lofton in all the way from first.
No problem.
Faced with the prospect of walking the tying run into scoring position, Saenez did what every in the park knew he had to do. He grooved a fastball down the middle, and Nomar pounced, sending it deep into the night. There was never any doubt where the ball would land, and Nomar begin celebrating before he even left the batter's box.
Vin Scully, perhaps the greatest storyteller the game has seen, knew there weren't any words to describe the scene exploding in Chavez Ravine, so he stayed silent for a while, letting the pictures speak. After a minute or two, he sheepishly interruped the on-field revelry with a line that at once summed up the game and demonstrated his true genius: "Oh, I forgot to tell you -- the Dodgers are in first place." Even in that frenetic moment, as an entire city celebrated, Vinny was still talking just to me.
So what did this game mean? If you unfold the paper on Wednesday morning and look at the standings, you might think it meant nothing. The Padres moved back into first place by beating the Diamondbacks while the Dodgers lost to the Pirates on Tuesday night, essentially nullifying the Monday Night Miracle, but sometimes a win can be worth more than just a single game in the standings.
If the Dodgers can hit four homeruns in the ninth inning to tie and then another in the tenth to win, how worried can they be about a half-game defecit with eleven games to play?
Also, Nomar's homer sent ripples far beyond the Dodger clubhouse. With the fans, Monday's game appears to have the same resonance as Kobe Bryant's 81-point performance. I'm not even a Dodger fan, but I still managed to have four separate conversations on Tuesday morning that started out with some variation of "Did you watch last night?" -- and no one thought we were talking about Prison Break. People shared their stories about the game in a way usually reserved for calamitous events: "I fell asleep in the ninth inning, but then the cheering crowd woke me up" or "I walked into a bar and the place was going crazy; it was 9-8" or, shamefully, "I went to bed after the eighth."
I don't think it's understating it to say that this one game could be enough to propel the Dodgers to the playoffs while galvanizing their fanbase around them. Yes, a single game in the middle of September can do that. Just watch.
You're right that everyone was talking about it. And writing about it too. Including me (from my blog on myspace):
If I was watching this game as a seven year old, I would have been pleading for four home runs in a row. No singles rally. No patient at bats. No bases on balls. Just four straight homeruns from the next four guys coming to the plate. You see, an impatient child, with his team down 9-5 in the bottom of the ninth, wants that feeling of despair to end instantly. And you know what, you can say the same at age 25, with the difference being a lack of hope. At 25, fantastic thoughts like back-to-back-to-back-to-back bottom of the ninth homeruns to tie are preempted by a realistic outlook honed by years of watching baseball and a healthy disbelief in things like Santa Claus. That's why when something like that happens, you scream, you jump on the couch, and anyone watching you will, for one moment, see you become seven years old again.
Four straight bombs. Kent, Drew, Martin, Anderson. The 'stache, the deadman, the rook, and...who? And then to follow all of that with a monster walk-off from Nomar Garciaparra. A guy whose vintage season has been marred by a recent slump. A guy who comes to the plate with "Lowrider" blaring on the Dodger Stadium PA system. A guy who is obviously the emotional leader of this team as evidenced by his chilling homerun trot which, to me, was like a mix of Kirk Gibson and Charlie running home with the golden ticket. I will never (for)get this game.
The prevailing thought that I had toward the end of the game was man, I'm going to miss having all these veterans on my team. Watching Kenny Lofton make acrobatic plays at the centerfield wall in crunch time and then draw a huge (YUGE!) walk in the bottom of the tenth prompting Vin Scully to yelp, "The Dodgers have a rabbit on as the tying run!" Then seeing Nomar do his little shimmy before stepping to the plate interspersed with shots of Jeff Kent taking on-deck swings. I'm starting to realize how much luck and genius went into making the Dodgers who they are today. Bringing in crafty veterans to usher in the long awaited prospects has defined the make up of this team and has instilled the never die atmosphere that can only be created by players with something to prove. For the rookies, they must prove that they do in fact belong. For the veterans, it's to prove that they still belong. It's the same kind of tension, just from opposite ends. And the result is a team devoid of a "true" superstar and more of a team because of it.
Some other thoughts:
- The fricken Padres. The unremarkable, khaki sporting bunch who become the toughest 27 outs in baseball when they play the Dodgers. I could not believe they had the sack to put up a run in the top of the 10th after the four run barrage by the Dods. They just do not die.
-Had Sammy Saito not given up that last run in the top of the 9th (the run that made the score 9-5 and no longer a save opportunity), the Dodgers would have been facing Trevor Hoffman to start the bottom and who knows how that may have turned out (Hoffman at the start of the game had 55 saves in 57 save opportunites for his career against the Dodgers, coverting his last 24 in a row). But as it happened, when the Padres took that four run lead, Hoffman gave way to Adkins who promptly gave up the first two of the four bombs, leaving Hoffman, sorta warmed up/sorta tight, to come in with the momentum clearly swinging toward the Dodgers way and the crowd on its feet. Two pitches later, it was tied. But hey, that's what happens when you try to get cute; you get screwed.
- I told you Saito is the man. Even when he screws up, he ends up helping.
- Dodger fans should consider themselves blessed to have Vin Scully. Not only did he drop several GEMS throughout the night--
It has been a Friday night and Saturday night combined emotionally, but now it's starting to feel like Monday. ...
This crowd is beside itself with joy. You can come down the wall now. ...
A lot of the folks that left have decided to come back, so welcome back. ...
-- but at the glorious end, in true Vin Scully fashion, he let the raw footage do all the talking. We saw the team huddle at homeplate as a screaming Nomar came stomping home with the winning run. We saw the crowd going Bedlam. We saw the Padres walk dejectedly from the field. We heard the din of the fans and the faint yet unmistakable intro to Randy Newman's ubiquitous "I Love L.A." And even though he had never seen a game like that before in his storied career, he knew anything he said could not improve the natural sounds and images of being at the ball park. So he left it at that. That's why he is the master. But he did chime on one more time before signing off. He said--
I forgot to tell you. The Dodgers are in first place.
Posted by: Shaun | September 20, 2006 at 10:29 AM