Reconstructing a game by in-game threads is a surreal, turbulent way to make sense of it. VEB was in a sour mood all night. When it got to 7-4 some David Eckstein type, trying to get the commenters back into it, was greeted w/ more or less derision. Hardcore fans freak out hardcore, we groused: leave us alone. It turned out she was right; whoever that person is deserves that thread’s game ball, if such a thing were available to be deserved. When Freese homered to the grassy knoll the stunned polyrythmic reax echoed off each other like gunfire, all woooooos and oooooooohs and fuckkkkks (the latter in its positive iteration, obv.) Examining these, you can tell something amazing happened but not what, really; it’s pure impression which is the greatest illustration of how elusive and momentary these things are.
Coming down from everything, I also spent most of an hour perusing nine overflow threads on Lone Star Ball, the Rangers’ equivalent to VEB. No Schadenfreude: Rangers fans never did anything to me. I wanted to find out forensically how it felt in the opposite direction. Obv., the results were nasty, but what’s fascinating is that Rangers fans, at least the LSB commenters, were as bitter during the game as VEB was—the whole time we were bitching about BABIP and how it felt like the Cardinals were several hundred runs behind, they were doing the same thing. It felt like nobody was winning, deserved to win, or would; two fanbases talked past each other right into the greatest finish ever. Talk about polarities, demographics, and the power of denial. Nothing feels less like the truth than radical raw iddy partisanship.
Based on blog comments Cardinals fans and Rangers fans were watching two way different games until the data finally overlapped on the walkoff. Which is to say, I don’t think any of us really appreciated what happened. Too much bickering and despair made it no fun at all, except retroactively. You can’t enjoy a game like that in real time, not if you’ve got an emotional stake in it.
Emotionally the game turned for me when they IBB’d Pujols in the 10th. He went almost joyously to first, clapping like he’d actually worked the walk himself. Albert knew. All during Berkman’s AB I felt this underwater calm that was almost sybaritic. Only then was I able to be really out of it psychologically and into it aesthetically. My favorite anecdote from Game 6 75 is Pete Rose pausing before his PA long enough to say to Carlton Fisk: hey, this is some kind of game isn’t it? That’s cheesy and I kind of hate Pete Rose but last night Berkman coming up was that for me.
Of course Lance got the tying hit and at that point I knew the Cardinals would win. I thought maybe it’d be in like the 14th on a blooped wrong-field single, that’s all.
Freese’s walkoff brings me even after missing the Edmonds Game 6, which I didn’t see live. I was forced to work that night (and almost every other night that postseason, actually) in a soulless bunker in a pre-smartphone world and I’ve never been able to totally forgive myself for not seeing maybe my favorite Cardinal ever inscribe himself like that. Last night changed that. At least Freese doesn’t frost his tips. Or have tips available to be frosted, even. Thanks for everything, Davey.
Something else: Joe Buck, who I alone adore (he is the Cardinals’ LEGACY! What about that don’t you mooks get?) was on Deadspin today emailing the following to AJ Daulerio: thanks man, fun night. Of course he’s getting killed for being his usual deadpan self and/or for biting Jack’s original call but I love how Buck just accepts that massively classic things happen and treats them like Rihanna copping to nudes of her online—yeah, that happened. I look good! It’s great to be me! He enrages so many but Joe Buck is one of my favorite parts of last night. Thanks, Jack.
