As you are undoubtedly aware, the Cardinals are playing for their 11th World Championship (#win11for11in11) beginning Wednesday night. Between now and then, I'll have a number of posts covering the series from all angles. This post discusses Game Three.
When Albert Pujols stepped into the batters box against Alexi Ogando in the sixth inning the score was 8-6 in favor of Pujols' Cardinals. At that point, both teams had batted around and were on their third pitchers. It was an ugly, trying game and it felt like the Rangers were inching closer and closer to topping the Cardinals. With the crowd about 95% Rangers fans, if the Rangers ever got the lead, they weren't giving it back. That ballpark rocks the way Old Busch did: It's loud. Albert was holding the master remote though. Much like he did in the 2005 NLCS, after his at bat against Ogando, the volume was one notch above mute.
I was standing behind the Rangers family and wives, underneath an overhang. When Albert struck the ball, it was clearly a home run, the question was how far would it go. We never saw the ball come down; all we saw was the scramble for it by the Sonic billboard in leftfield. It was incredible, but that wasn't the end of this historical night. The Cardinals went on to bat around in the sixth so Albert was up again in the seventh. Lefthander Mike Gonzalez was in for the Rangers. His father was sitting directly ahead of me and when Gonzalez walked Allen Craig ahead of Albert, Mr. Gonzalez nervously got up and looked disturbed. He must have felt something because Albert deposited Gonzalez's pitch into the left centerfield bleachers. At this point, I turned to my friend and the other Cardinal fans around us and went crazy. Albert was 4-5 with 2 HR, 5 RBI. This was the greatest postseason performance by the greatest player I will ever see.
As the Cards expanded their lead, we all figured TLR would give Yadi a break by moving him to first base for the final inning or so and letting Gerald Laird catch and get an AB. That was apparently Albert's plan too: He wanted to give Laird the AB, but the other Hall of Famer in the dugout sensed that Albert had a shot to rewrite the record books and told Albert to take the AB. Darren Oliver was pitching for the Rangers. Since 2007, Oliver has given up 0.6 HR/9. This year it was even lower at 0.5 and he hadn't allowed a home run since May 2nd. Albert mashes lefties so we figured he had a pretty good shot at getting a fifth hit which is nothing to sneeze at.
At some point before his AB, I asked my friend who else besides Reggie Jackson had hit three HRs in a World Series game. Neither of us knew, but we figured there was so little chance of it happening that we didn't bother to look it up. Every time you watch a baseball game, you are reminded that it truly is a game of inches. In Game One of this series, the Cardinals won because Allen Craig got a hit that just eluded Nelson Cruz's sliding attempt. The ball actually deflected off Cruz's shoe to keep it in front of him. Both teams got a break there. In Game Two, Ian Kinsler's 9th inning single dropped in the smallest of spaces between Rafael Furcal and Matt Holliday, then he stole despite an absolutely perfect throw by Yadier Molina because he was able to have an even more perfect slide. Last night, Albert hit a foul pop up just out of Mike Napoli's reach. I told my friend, "if it weren't for Napoli's catcher's alligator arms, that's an out." Albert had life and when Albert has a shot, do not bet against him. Ever.
The official attendance for the game was 51,462, but there are not 51,642 people in this world who can honestly say they saw Albert Pujols hit three home runs in the World Series. Many fans cleared out, but those regardless of affiliation those remaining fans realized the magnitude of what they just saw. Rangers and Cardinals fans alike were applauding and bowing in worship to King Albert. I was hoping that due to the extent of the respect he'd receive that he'd come out and give a curtain call, but it didn't happen.
I was shaking for the remainder of the game in awe of what I had seen. Leaving the stadium, we high-fived every Cardinals fan we saw. Rangers fans were not bitter and said they were glad to witness history. It was remarkable. Over a post game dinner, I talked about what the best game I've ever seen was because last night was so special. After some thinking, I slotted it at number two behind Game Seven of the 2004 NLCS. On an individual performance level, however, there is #1 and then a very, very wide gap. I noted in my recap of the season how Albert was relatively quiet at games I went to this year. Not anymore.
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