Ugly Game 6 ends beautifully

ST. LOUIS – Lance Berkman was still in his mommy's tummy at the time. In the 11th inning of Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, the one Boston's Carlton Fisk eventually ended by waving a home run fair in that all-too-famous clip, Pete Rose stepped to the plate, turned to Fisk and said, "Man, isn't this the most exciting game you ever played in?"

"I've heard that story," Berkman said as the elation finally died down in the Cardinals locker room earlier today, after Thursday's outrageously improbable elimination-staving 11-inning 10-9 victory over the Texas Rangers in Game 6 kept this World Series alive.

So, he was asked, did he ever have that thought amid the late-inning craziness that is sure to be recounted for years to come.

Well, not exactly.

"Really, truly this was an ugly game for six or seven innings," Berkman said. "And then it got really beautiful right there at the end. But there were a lot of things that you could look at and say, 'That's not good baseball.'"

Yep, sure were. So many that it was hard to keep track of them all even an hour after the game ended.

Start with David Freese, whose 429-foot home run to straight center in the 11th finally ended a four-and-a-half hour game in which seven runs were scored over the final three innings, a game in which balls were dropped and wild throws were made and 15 pitchers were used.

And that's not counting the two pitchers, Edwin Jackson and Kyle Lohse, that Cardinals manager Tony La Russa burned to pinch-hit in the 10th inning. By the time Freese ended it with his home run, La Russa was out of position players and pretty close to being out of pitchers.

Just imagine: A World Series decided with a position player on the mound.

Then again, there was fat chance of that given how badly both teams were catching the ball. They combined for only five errors either because the official scorer stopped counting, or he's an even nicer man than Dan Baker. Also you can't give a guy an error for running slowly or whiffing entirely the way Nelson Cruz did on Freese's game-tying ninth inning double, and you can't give a guy an error for airmailing a double-play relay throw the way Elvis Andrus did earlier in the game.

But back to Freese. It was his dropped fly that had led to the Rangers fourth run in the fifth inning. Earlier Freese had alligator-ed a foul pop too, which the St. Louis version of Dan Baker ruled a no play. He was shaping up as one of the gloomy voices of the losing clubhouse, and down to his last strike with two outs and two on in the ninth, one of the goats.

"I felt like I was part of a circus out there," Freese said afterwards. "Bouncing balls off the top of my hat."

Something about elimination games and this guy though. His four RBIs in Game 4 against Roy Oswalt and the Phillies rescued that series for the Cardinals. Facing fireballing Texas closer Neftali Feliz in the ninth last night, down to his last strike, Freese punched a 98-mile-an hour fastball over Cruz's head, scoring Albert Pujols and Berkman with the game-tying runs.

Then in the 11th, after Josh Hamilton had again quieted the 47,325 at Busch Stadium with a two-run 10th-inning shot against Jason Motte and the Cardinals answered with two small-ball runs, Freese sent reliever Mark Lowe's 3-2 pitch well beyond the centerfield wall.

"I knew we were going to have plenty of opportunities to bounce back, and when things like that happen, you've just got to stay focused," Freese said. "That's what this game is about. There's so many different ways to win a ballgame…"

And to lose one too. Stopped by the Giants pitching in last year's World Series, the Rangers could do the unthinkable with a loss tonight: Replace the Phillies as the most disappointed team this offseason.

Like Fisk back in 1975, Freese was mobbed at home plate of course, mugged really, emerging only after his right sleeve had been ripped off. Afterwards he spoke of keeping his cool in the big spots by remembering that he's playing the same game he's been playing since he was six, that, "It's just elevated on a stage, and everyone is watching."

Bemused, sitting to his side, Berkman offered the assessment of a veteran player who has come through and has failed on such a stage, a man who admits he has never felt in a game the way Rose did that night 36 years ago.

"When you're a little kid and you're out there," he said, "you don't have a bunch of reporters and fans that are ready to call you a choking dog if you don't come through. So when you're a kid, you don't realize what a big moment that is.

"I'm just going to caution all little kids out there, be careful what you wish for."