Ode to a Homer

Like individual memory, a broad extended canvas highlighted by those occasional moments that leave a lasting impression, so is the history of the sport of baseball like a continuous tapestry with sparkling, defining moments. One of those moments occurred last night, justifying the long slog through an undistinguished post-season noted mainly for sloppy umpiring. Fortunately (I guess), now that my emotinal involvement in the results have withered along with the elimination of the Yankees, I can enjoy the sport on a purely objective, even aesthetic basis.

Baseball does have its moments of beauty. These usually involve the balletic motion of fielders, the pivot/jump of a second baseman turning a double play, as in the finale of the NLCS fourth game on Sunday; the elegant last-second lunge of an outfielder for an uncatchable ball, proved catchable by Jim Edmonds or Willie Mays or Ron Swoboda; even an awkward backflip specialized by Derek Jeter. Offensively there is nothing more graceful than the high arc of a booming home run. These instances are of course intensified by the drama of the moment, and are never more in focus than during championship play-offs.

In last night's ninth inning of the Houston-St. Louis series, with the Astros one strike away from achieving a forty-five year goal of a World Series berth, circumstances produced another crystalline gem of a moment. The stands were rocking, the white flags were waving (don't the Texans know white flags mean surrender?), former President Bush and First Lady/Mother Barbara, sitting in the not-so-underprivileged box seats behind the Astro dugout, were beaming smugly. After two easy strikeouts, expert closer Brad Lidge had two strikes on pesky David Eckstein, who managed to squib a hit between Ensberg and Everett. That brought up Jim Edmonds with the potential tying run, so Lidge pitched too carefully to him and walked him. Bad idea. On deck was the best hitter in baseball, the prodigious Albert Pujols. After swinging badly at a Lidge slider, Pujols--whom the camera had spotted earliler in the inning staring in a dismal funk--caught the poorly thrown slider perfectly and rocketed it almost supernaturally far above the onlookers in the left field porch. It hit the top of the rear wall as Minute Maid Park turned deathly silent and the Cards held on to win, 5-4. The Astros, totally discombobulated, barely made contact in the bottom of the ninth.

As a self-styled baseball historian I can think of very few home runs that have resounded so dramatically. There is of course Bobby Thompson's 1951 playoff-winner that also turned a 4-2 loss into a 5-4 win, though that was with one out. My personal favorite moment was Yankee Aaron Boone's 2003 ALCS winner against the Red Sox, because, 1) it was against the Red Sox, and 2) I had predicted, on record, an Aaron Boone game-winner. There have been other famous walk-off homers, from Mazeroski to Carlton Fisk to Joe Carter, but none of them came in as desperate a situation as Pujols faced yesterday. And in terms of purely personal drama, the Kirk Gibson homer that beat Dennis Eckersley is perhaps the standout baseball moment because he was utterly crippled, and like Vin Scully said "The impossible" had happened.

The Pujols homer was different from most of the other extreme clutch homers in one aspect--it was so amazingly majestic and emphatic. Boone, Mazeroski, Thompson, Fisk and Carter all hit low line drives into left field; Gibson's had a conventional arc into the right field bleachers. But Pujols' shot was, well, Gargantuan. It was Roy Hobbsian. It was not so much a home run as it was a Statement. The best hitter in the game put personal stamp on a gigantic base hit in an excruciatingly tough moment, and it was truly aesthetic, even awe-inspiring. A few seconds after that shot Kevin called me up to say, simply, "This is why it's great to be a baseball fan." (He also added some carping about LaRussa's benching of Suppan in our last week, which cost us each $500; I agreed on both counts).

It is perfectly possible that the Astros, who still have a 3-2 series lead, could capture one of the final games in St. Louis (as they are starting Oswalt and Clemens against inconsistent Cardinal hurlers) but somehow I think this last-minute twist will be as inspirational to St. Louis as it is demoralizing to Houston. If Houston wins, then the Pujols event will be noted by baseball historians, but not long-remembered. At this juncture, though, it has the feel of a very similar home run by Dave Henderson in the ninth inning of the 1986 Angels-Red Sox playoff that turned the tide of that series; the disheartened Californians sleepwalked through the final two games in Fenway. That homer actually had sad and tragic consequences; sad because it led eventually to the Bill Buckner debacle in the World Series, forever staining his reputation. But more appallingly, the reliever who threw the two-strike gopher ball to Henderson, Donnie Moore, was so devastated that he eventually killed himself a few years later.

It's sobering to see how harsh personal reality can intrude even the frivolous world of sports entertainment, and I sincerely hope that Brad Lidge, a young and talented pitcher, will not have a similar emotional breakdown if Houston loses the series. The spotlight should linger on the hero, Albert Pujols, whose transcendentally exceptional skill is something all of us can admire, and who has graciously contributed another sterling moment to American baseball lore.