Define Greatest...

The World Series is over and many of you may not have seen even one pitch thrown. A lot of years I didn’t care to watch it either but this year was a little intriguing so I watched quite a bit of four games. Unfortunately I had other things that were pressing the other nights and I missed them completely.

For anyone who had the chance to see game six it turned out to be a real classic. It had a lot of drama and timely hits and if you listen to many of the pundits in the sports world or even some of the talking heads on the evening news we got to see the greatest game ever.

Really? If you turned the game on in the fifth or sixth inning then yes you got to see the best of the series by far. Drama, pitching, hitting, and some pretty good plays made to keep you at the edge of your seat.

But how many of you started watching from the beginning and after about four or five errors were committed many thought that the game was already a bust by the third inning and turned the game off not knowing or caring how the game would turn out.

Baseball is a funny game and we can get lulled to boredom especially when the play looks as bad as it did. Some of the Mariners fans were probably wondering why those Texas Rangers didn’t play Seattle this year. It seemed like the Rangers would hit any pitch good or bad that the M’s pitchers threw at them.

But there they were striking out or popping up with runners in scoring position against the St. Louis Cardinals and coming away without much.

The Rangers pitchers made the young and old Mariners hitters look like over matched little leaguers at times but against the Cardinals most looked average at best.

Obviously St. Louis was playing their very best at just the right time of the year.

Late in Game 6 former Mariner Adrian Beltre got hold of a slider and jacked it over the left field fence for a two run homer.

Nelson Cruz followed with another home run and it looked like we were watching the new World Series champions taking care of business.

The Rangers possessed a three run lead and all they had to do was get nine outs. The toughest one of course is always the 27th one.

The bottom of the eighth inning got a little crazy with walks and tough plays to make and the Cardinals scored one run on a walk with the bases loaded. The big play of the inning happened when Rangers catcher Mike Napoli threw a dart to Beltre at third base and picked off Cardinals Matt Holliday. This play would help keep the Cardinals scoring to a single run and kept the St. Louis fans on the edge of their seats with fret and worry.

The Cardinals rallied for two runs to tie it in the bottom of the ninth followed by a two run homer in the top of the tenth by Josh Hamilton and the Cardinal fans again felt like they were punched in the gut.

But the Cardinals weren’t about to go quietly into the night. They again rallied to tie the game and there we were wondering who would blink.

The Rangers were unable to score in the eleventh and their pitching staff was running thin. Enter former Mariners Mark Lowe for the Rangers and he came into the game finding it difficult to throw strikes.

When he finally did it was met by David Reese’s bat and the ball traveled over the centerfield fence, game over.

Rangers Manager Ron Washington should have employed a double switch earlier in the game when he brought in new pitchers so that the pitchers batting slot wouldn’t put the incoming pitcher up to bat in two or three slots. Because of that, Washington had to pinch hit for Scott Feldman which meant that Lowe would need to give Texas another chance which of course didn’t happen and game seven was the result.

The momentum carried over to Friday night and the Cardinals were once again world champions.

So let’s go back to the thought that this was the greatest game played in World Series history. From start to finish it certainly wasn’t, but greatest finish I would have to say it was.

Some would say that I’m nitpicky but shouldn’t a great game be the entire game? I’ve seen too many great games from start to finish that should be considered classic matches with Hall of Fame talent.

Entertaining as Thursday’s game was it left fans wondering where the great defense had gone.

But without a doubt the definition of great would be the finish to Thursday’s game.

It proved that no one wanted to leave Busch Stadium on the losing end of the scoreboard and because of that all baseball fans came out winners.