Game 6-6-6: Should be a devil of a good time

If you can feel the anticipation in the fall air, it must be Game 6 of the World Series. It's not just the Phillies staging their remarkable comeback here, though there is that. It's also that arguably the three greatest baseball games of the the last half-century were all Game 6s of the World Series. Each one is famous for high drama -- and for extending the series to a Game 7.

Remember these:

1. Game 6 of the 1975 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds:

You've seen it again and again, and still you are hard pressed to change the channel every time it graces your screen. The image of Carlton Fisk watching his ball soar into the Boston night, urging it from afar to pass inside the foul pole atop the Green Monster, and finally leaping with ecstasy when his homer stays fair continues to provide goose bumps for baseball fans worthy of the designation.

2. Game 6 of the 1986 World Series between the New York Mets and Boston Red Sox:

Boston is one out away from winning its first Series since 1918, holding a two-run lead with two outs and nobody on base in the 10th inning in Game 6. But the Mets get three consecutive singles to make it 5-4. Bob Stanley relieves and third-base coach Bud Harrelson tells Kevin Mitchell, the runner on third, "He might throw a wild pitch. Be ready." Stanley does, and the game is tied.

The rest is history.

3, Game 6 of the 1991 World Series between the Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves:

Puckett was a one-man gang for the Twins, knocking in two runs, scoring another, and robbing the Braves of still another with a gravity-defying snare of a Ron Gant drive to the wall in the third. But thanks to a game-tying homer by Terry Pendleton in the seventh, Puckett would need to produce even more.The game remained tied at three through the eleventh when Atlanta skipper Bobby Cox sent Game 1 starter Charlie Leibrandt, the veteran left-hander, to the hill to face the heart of the Twins' order. He never even got past Puckett. The first batter up that inning, Puckett capped his performance by driving the game winner into the seats in left-center to force a Game 7.

That's also the game that ended with Jack Buck's famous call, "And we'll see you tomorrow night!" Oh, how Philadelphia would love to hear that call again. So what's going to happen? Well, I could tell you what I think, or I could tell you what Attytood reader SM instructed me to say, convinced that my post Monday about the Yankees' success under Democratic presidents had some role in outcome. So, let's say it again -- the Yankees are going to win. There, baseball gods, I've said it. Now do your magic.