The World Series (9 page)

The hit marked the fourth one-run victory of the Series. Fans who liked down-to-the-wire excitement had had more than their
fill with this championship —and that was before game seven was even played.

Game seven, according to baseball watchers everywhere, was one of the most memorable ever played. It was a pitcher's duel,
pitting twenty-four-year-old John Smoltz of the Atlanta Braves against a man he had admired growing up, veteran hurler Jack
Morris. There was a twelve-year difference in their ages, but statistically, they were near equals.

Just how equal was evident right from the start. Morris retired the first six batters he faced. Smoltz sent four back to the
dugout before giving up two singles. He defused the scoring threat, however, by covering first on the next play to end the
inning.

Inning after inning it went on. Batters who got hits died on base. After seven innings, the scoreboard showed nothing but
goose eggs. The anticipation was almost palpable: Who, fans and players wondered, would finally break through?

The answer almost came at the top of the eighth. Lonnie Smith singled to right, bringing up Terry Pendleton. With a mighty
swing, Pendleton blasted the ball deep into left center field.

Braves fans jumped up, eyes glued to the ball's path. If it went over the wall, it was a ground-rule double that would prevent
Smith from rounding third and heading home. If it rebounded off the wall, it could still be a double, but maybe good enough
to get Smith across the plate.

Blam!
The ball hit and bounced back to the field. The crowd cheered and shifted their gaze to Smith, not wanting to miss the moment
he hit the dirt in front of home plate.

But to their horror, Smith wasn't running home. Even though the ball was still far in the outfield, he was stopping at third!

What had happened? The answer was simple if astonishing.

When Pendleton had hit the ball, Smith took off from first without knowing where the ball was headed. As Smith passed second,
he saw infielder Chuck Knoblauch field the ball and throw it to Greg Gagne, who was covering second. Smith stopped at third,
certain he was lucky to have made it there safely.

But of course, Gagne didn't have the ball. Smith had been tricked by a classic decoy play!

Morris finished off the Braves, sending them back into the field without a run.

Unfortunately for the Twins, the Braves did the same to them. At the top of the ninth, the score was
still
0–0.

And then, incredibly, at the end of the bottom of the ninth, it was still 0-0.

Morris took the mound for the tenth inning, making him the only other pitcher besides Christy Mathewson to pitch for more
than nine in a World Series. He had faced thirty-five batters so far. He faced three more now, retiring the side in order.
Now it was up to his teammates to bring it on home.

In the Braves dugout, Smoltz watched the action unfold. He had lasted nearly eight innings. Now Alejandro Pena was pitching.
Pena had held the
Twins scoreless so far, and was determined to the same this inning.

But the first batter he faced, Dan Gladden, sent the ball soaring into left field. Gladden stretched the hit into a double.
Then Chuck Knoblauch bunted down the third baseline. Knoblauch was out, but Gladden was safe at third.

Pena walked sluggers Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbek. The bases were loaded, with still only one out.

As the clock ticked onto midnight, Eugene Larkin came up to bat. Larkin knew what he had to do: hit a ball high enough so
that Gladden could tag up and beat the throw home.

The Braves knew what he needed to do, too. But knowing it and preventing it are two different things.

Pena threw and Larkin connected, not for a simple fly ball but for a long blast into left field. Outfielder Brian Hunter started
for it and then stopped, knowing full well that that hit had just scored the Series-winning run.

As the Twins swarmed out of the dugout, the Braves slowly walked off the field. Yet even in defeat, the Atlanta team took
comfort in knowing that they'd been part of the most memorable Series ever
played. Mark Lemke summed it up best when he said, “Man, that was fun. Let's do it again next year!”

Lemke and the Braves would, indeed, “do it again next year,” winning the pennant but losing the World Series to the Blue Jays.
In 1993, the Blue Jays won again, besting the Philadelphia Pliillies four games to two.

Then, in 1994, a long-simmering conflict between players and owners boiled over. The season was cut short when the players
went on strike on August 12 to protest the team owners' call for a cap on salaries. On September 9, baseball commissioner
Bud Selig was forced to cancel the remainder of the season, including the postseason championship. For the first time ever,
there would be no World Series.

Baseball fans were appalled, especially since greed seemed at the heart of the strike. Baseball's reputation took a severe
beating in the following months; in fact, it would take a few years before it rebuilt its fan base to what it had once been.

But rebuild it did, thanks in large part to classic baseball drama. The New York Yankees regained their long-lost throne in
1996, lost it in 1997, and then claimed it again in 1998 and 1999. In 1997, the
tenth-inning, seventh-game World Series triumph of the upstart Florida Marlins over the Cleveland Indians had fans cheering
in the streets. And in the final months of the 1998 regular season, the world watched as Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa raced
to beat Roger Maris's home-run record.

By the start of the new millennium, most baseball fans had put the players' strike behind them. They were ready to sit back
and enjoy the national pastime once again.

CHAPTER TEN
2000s

The first World Series of the millennium ended the way the last one of the old millennium had — with a victory by the New
York Yankees. But in 2001, the mighty Yanks were put down by the Arizona Diamondbacks, a team that had been in existence for
only three years! New York was out of the running the following year but returned to the fall classic in 2003 — only to lose
once again, this time to the Florida Marlins.

Then came 2004 and with it one of the most unexpected and thrilling postseason upsets baseball had ever seen.

The Boston Red Sox had been a “close but no cigar” club since the mid-1980s. In 2004, they came out on top in the American
League East with a record of 98 wins, 64 losses. In the postseason, they
quickly dispatched the Anaheim Angels for the Division title. Next up, however, were the Yankees, their longtime rivals and,
with a record of 101–61, the better of the two teams.

The first two games of the ALCS were played in New York. The Sox lost both. The series moved to Fenway Park for game three
— which the Sox also lost by a demoralizing 19–8!

The Yankees needed only one victory to move on to the World Series. They didn't get it in game four, however. Instead, Boston
squeaked out a twelfth-inning win thanks to a two-run homer by power hitter David Ortiz.

Ortiz was the man of the hour again in game five — a very late hour at that, for he blasted an RBI single in the
fourteenth
inning to give the Sox a 5–4 win. The next night, back in Yankee Stadium, a home run by Mark Bellhorn in the fourth inning
handed the Sox their third straight victory.

The next game, Boston made history by doing what no team had ever done. They fought back from a 3–0 deficit to win four straight
games. It was an unbelievable feat, made all the more thrilling by the game-saving home runs and the incredible stamina
of injured pitcher Curt Schilling, whose right ankle was noticeably bloody throughout much of his game-six win.

The “Boston Faithful,” as Red Sox fans called themselves, were overjoyed. Banners reading REVERSE THE CURSE! flew from bridges,
out of windows, and scrawled across newspapers. All of Boston hoped this would be the year the legendary Curse of the Bambino
would finally be put to bed.

After the suspenseful come-from-behind success story of the ALCS, the 2004 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and
the Boston Red Sox was somewhat tame.

Somewhat, but not completely.

The first game was a shoot-out started by David Ortiz, who belted a three-run homer in his first at bat. Boston posted another
run later in the inning to go ahead by four. Then, in the bottom of the third, a series of well-hit singles added three more
runs to Boston's side.

The Cardinals, meanwhile, had crossed home plate only twice. But they came roaring back, and by the bottom of the sixth inning,
the score was tied, 7–7.

Boston answered their next time up with two of
their own, however, to go ahead 9–7. But then St. Louis pushed across two more in the top of the eighth, tying things up once
again!

Mark Bellhorn turned the tide in Boston's favor. With Jason Varitek on first following a fielding error, he rang the right-field
pole on a pitch by Julián Tavárez. Home run!

The Sox were up, 11–9, and when Red Sox closer Keith Foulke retired St. Louis in the top of the ninth, Boston had their first
World Series game tucked neatly in their back pockets.

Three nights and two victories later, the Red Sox were one win away from sweeping the Cardinals out of the Series and capturing
their first championship ring in eighty-six years.

Game four was played in Busch Stadium before a sellout crowd. The night air had a hint of magic in it, for a full lunar eclipse
was predicted to occur during the game. As the moon slowly began to disappear behind the shadow of the Earth, Red Sox leadoff
batter Johnny Damon came to the plate. He took a called strike and two balls and then, on the fourth pitch, did what only
sixteen other leadoff batters
have done in the World Series: he hit a home run! One at bat and Boston was already on the board!

The Sox sweetened the lead by two in the top of the third, thanks to a two-run double by Trot Nixon. Meanwhile, pitcher Derek
Lowe was busy blanking the Cardinals inning after inning. When he finally came out of the game after the seventh inning, he
had given up only three hits!

All Boston needed was to hold St. Louis for two more innings. They did just that — and when Edgar Renteria grounded out to
end the bottom of the ninth, the Red Sox had finally put the eighty-six-year-old Curse behind them!

Players and fans went wild. Corks popped in the locker room, and champagne sprayed everyone around. Johnny Damon spoke for
the whole team by saying, “We're going to enjoy it a bit … and do what champions do — celebrate!”

The following year, it was the other Sox team that was celebrating, however. Like their East Coast cousins, the Chicago White
Sox hadn't won a World Series in more than eight decades. They, too, had a curse to overcome: the Black Sox Scandal of 1919.
In 2005, they did just what the Red Sox had done —they put that curse to bed by sweeping their opponents, the Houston Astros,
in four straight games to win their first World Series in eighty-eight years.

The final nail in the Astros' coffin came in classic style. It was the eighth inning of game four. The White Sox were up at
bat. The score was tied 0-0. There were two outs. Willie Harris stood at third, ready to run for home.

Jermaine Dye came up to the plate. He swung at pitcher Brad Lidge's first offering. Strike one. The second pitch was in the
dirt for ball one, but the third pitch was on the money. Dye swung.

Pow!
Ground ball to center field! Dye rushed for first, and Harris sprinted for home — and made it!

That single run was the only one of the game. With it, the White Sox erased their past mistakes and, like the 102 World Series
winners before them, were welcomed home as heroes.

The World Series is now more than a century old. Professional baseball is even older. The sport has had its share of low points,
from the 1919 Black Sox
scandal to the present-day issue of illegal steroid use in the major leagues.

Yet despite these setbacks, people the world over continue to look forward to the start of baseball season with eager anticipation.
Fans talk about the players as if they were old friends — or bitter enemies. They compare statistics on their favorite players,
past and current. And they relive their favorite plays, including classic World Series moments.