Cardinals 10, Rangers 9 (F/11): Greatest Bad Game, or Baddest Great Game?

Mike Napoli, seen here dying inside, would have been World Series  MVP

Only a few short hours after the utterly ridiculous conclusion of last night's mad game, it became clear that Game Six of the 2011 World Series had joined the pantheon, and taken its place alongside all the familiar candidates for greatest game in World Series history. I mean, as soon the late innings began to take their strange shape, I was pretty sure that this was the best World Series game since at least Game Seven in 1997, and probably since Game Seven in 1991, so it's not like I needed to have that impression confirmed by outside sources, but I was struck by how widespread the agreement was, especially for a non-New York, non-Boston game, and how quickly it all came out: last night, it would seem we all agree, we probably watched one of the greatest games, if not the greatest game, in the one-hundred-and-seven-year history of the World Series. How about that! 


And what a mess it was: five errors, including balls just straight-up dropped out there; Micheal Young's continued inability to field any of the positions he is asked to field (heck of a hitter, but a true futility infielder); Matt Holiday's amazing trick of dropping an easy fly ball in left and getting picked off of third base (on a great throw by Mike Napoli and a crafty block of the bag by Adrian Beltre) at what was, at time, a crucial moment in the game and injuring himself in the process, thereby requiring the Cardinals to use up a bench player who should have been available to pinch hit; Tony La Russa running out of bench players completely, and burning two pitchers in the same at-bat, an at-bat that ended with a sacrifice bunt that was popped up and could easily have been turned into a triple play had Beltre been a shade less aggressive in his charge from third; Josh Hamilton hitting a two-run home run, his first of the postseason, in extra innings after God told him he would (nice of him to check in!); Ron Washington somehow leaving Scott Feldman in there to pitch to Berkman, which went about as well as you might expect; and a dozen other crazy things you can revisit in Steve Gardner's estimable and workmanlike live blog.   


And of course there was David Freese, whose two-run triple with two strikes and two out in the bottom of the ninth tied the game, and whose solo shot to leadoff the eleventh won it. Should the wall-shy Nelson Cruz been able to make a play on that lined shot to right in the ninth? It looked tough but playable, that's for sure. Had he gone all out for it and missed, though, it could easily have gone for an inside-the-park home run, as Hamilton didn't seem to be backing the play up at all (Ian Kinsler probably had a better shot at it at second base, given the way it came off the wall). In the end it was fitting that it was Freese who tied and won it: earlier in the game, in the fifth, actually, a Josh Hamilton pop up bounced off of Freese's head and fell to the ground for an error. As went Jeff Freese's night, so went everybody's. There's been a lot of vague talk about theatre in the papers today, which we can probably narrow in on a little: the game started out as a baffling absurdist play where the suffering, though at times comic, seemed not just situational but existential, and it ended with Henry V-levels of righteous slaughter if you're the Cardinals and some serious gouge-your-eyes-out shit if you're not. I have thought that sentence over for exactly as long as it took to type it so I'm pretty sure it's completely right.


Anyway, to conclude: best game ever, man.


KS