MLB Community, which launched on Jan. 1, 2009, is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary in 2024. By means of Friday, MLB Community will rely down the highest 15 moments it has coated in its historical past, through weeknight segments on MLB Tonight (6 p.m. ET), in addition to throughout its social platforms. And don’t overlook to catch MLB Community’s fifteenth Anniversary retrospective present — “MLB Community Legendary Moments” introduced by Budweiser, with Greg Amsinger, Sean Casey and Harold Reynolds — scheduled for 7 p.m. ET on Monday, Jan. 22.
The No. 2 second on the countdown: Sport 6 of the 2011 World Collection between the Cardinals and Rangers.
A model of this story was revealed in 2019.
Sport 6 of the 2011 World Collection is on the brief checklist of craziest video games in World Collection historical past, with the Cardinals prevailing 10-9 in 11 innings. The Rangers — who had misplaced the World Collection to the Giants the earlier yr — have been on the verge of their first World Collection title in franchise historical past, as they led the Cardinals 7-5 going into the underside of the ninth.
We received’t give a full recap right here — the important thing issues to recollect are that David Freese tied it, Josh Hamilton gave the Rangers the lead once more within the tenth, Lance Berkman tied it once more, and Freese received it an inning later — and you’ll watch the epic ninth inning within the video above.
The sport had one different necessary subplot: Cardinals legend Albert Pujols was heading without cost company that winter, and the tip of the World Collection could be his final sport for St. Louis earlier than he signed with the Angels.
To assist remind everybody what made that night time so particular, we requested 12 MLB.com staffers who have been at Busch Stadium that night time (in addition to one who wasn’t) to share a reminiscence of that legendary sport on October 27, 2011. These are their reminiscences.
Jesse Sanchez, Nationwide Reporter
I’m from the Dallas-Fort Value space, the place the Texas Rangers reign. My fondest baseball reminiscence is getting tickets to the World Collection for my dad and mom in 2010 and 2011 and watching followers like my mom — Relaxation In Peace — love each second of it. I do know what it meant to the neighborhood to simply be within the Fall Basic. It meant every little thing. The primary time the Rangers have been one strike away from successful the World Collection I bear in mind tweeting one thing like, “Get up your children, Rangers followers, your favourite group is about to make historical past. You’ll be World Collection champs!” I finally deleted it.
I recall speaking to a dejected Adrián Beltré after Sport 6. He mentioned he was eager about how he was going to have fun the World Collection win. Was he going to throw his glove up within the air? Was he going to cost the mound? Was he going to run across the outfield? He did none of it. They misplaced after which misplaced Sport 7. Texans are a proud group and we at all times declare massive league gamers — or anybody, actually — with ties to the Lone Star State. Freese was born in Corpus Christi, Texas. Texans, or at the least those I knew, stopped claiming him after that sport. From that time on, he belonged to St. Louis, the place the place he was raised.
Jenifer Langosch, Editor (and one-time Cardinals beat reporter)
My marching orders the night time of Sport 6 have been outlined earlier than Jaime García threw the primary pitch: I used to be to cowl the Pujols angle. Free company was looming for the franchise first baseman, that means a Rangers win in Sport 6 had the potential to make this Pujols’ remaining sport for the Cardinals. That was to be my story that night time.
As soon as the Rangers took a 7-4 lead within the seventh, the tip felt close to — for everyone. When Pujols got here to bat with two out within the seventh, followers responded with a standing ovation. What went unstated, however not unrecognized, when he grounded out to finish the inning was he may not get one other at-bat. I began writing my piece.
In fact, we all know now that it wasn’t destined to finish that approach. Followers gave Pujols two extra stirring sendoffs with ovations when he got here to the plate with the Playing cards trailing within the ninth and tenth innings. Sure, they have been making an attempt to will their group to a come-from-behind win. However they have been additionally hoping to increase the keep of their famous person. They received each.
I nonetheless penned a narrative about Pujols that night time, simply not the one I anticipated. His one-out double within the ninth inning sparked the rally that will make Freese a legend. Afterward, Pujols informed reporters that he by no means let his thoughts wander to the likelihood that this might have been the tip. The remainder of us couldn’t say the identical.
Mark Feinsand, Nationwide Reporter (then with the New York Every day Information)
I by no means thought I might see a second within the World Collection like those I coated in 2001, my first yr on the Yankees beat for MLB.com. Some would certainly come shut, however the thought of something topping the two-out, two-strike, ninth-inning house runs hit by Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius towards D-backs nearer Byung-Hyun Kim appeared implausible. Freese modified all of that.
I used to be working for the New York Every day Information overlaying the Cardinals-Rangers collection in 2011, and when Neftali Feliz had Freese all the way down to his remaining strike within the ninth, I believed to myself, “It’s fairly cool that the Rangers are about to win their first-ever World Collection and I get to be right here to see it.” I had already despatched within the first model of my sport story (central time zones are brutal for newspaper deadlines again east), so I simply wanted to ensure the 7-5 remaining rating was right. It was not.
Busch Stadium went bonkers when Freese tied the sport together with his two-run triple. When Hamilton homered within the tenth, the group swayed the opposite approach, surprised that the baseball gods had turned on them so rapidly. However the Cardinals tied the sport within the tenth and Freese was the hero once more within the eleventh, sending the collection to Sport 7 together with his walk-off homer. The one quote I bear in mind from the postgame got here from Lance Berkman, who mentioned, “If we lose tomorrow night time, then this simply turns into a pleasant footnote in historical past. If we win tomorrow night time, then this turns into a fairly large deal.” As we now know, it was certainly a fairly large deal.
Matthew Leach, Editor (then Cardinals beat reporter)
I’m form of at a loss remembering little specifics as a result of each time I consider that sport and that week, I feel in a lot larger phrases. I consider the insane moments and video games that received the Cardinals there — from the delayed celebration in Houston on the finish of the common season, to Sport 5 in Philadelphia, to the bizarreness of just about the whole NLCS, to the bullpen cellphone and to Pujols’ three homers in Arlington. The entire thing was so unlikely that you simply form of knew it must finish this manner in the event that they have been going to win the entire thing.
After I consider that sport particularly I do not forget that it was, frankly, form of horrible for about six innings. Sloppy and ugly, and no person had any thought in anyway that it was going to show into an all-time traditional. Form of a disappointment, actually, after a lot enjoyable stuff had led as much as it. Even the tying hit, arguably, occurred partially due to a mistake — Nelson Cruz positive regarded like he wished no a part of the wall.
Truly, right here’s the easiest way to sum it up. This can be a line from the very first sport story I despatched that night time, within the eighth inning. After I filed this story, it was for a 7-4 Rangers win — earlier than the Cardinals began coming again, earlier than they tied it up, earlier than the trade of runs within the tenth, earlier than Freese’s walkoff. Earlier than this sport was ever a traditional, I wrote this:
“In a sport like this, although, good luck discovering a single turning level. It was merely one of many strangest World Collection video games in reminiscence.”
Three innings later, that felt like a fairly good name.
Richard Justice, former MLB.com Columnist (then with the Houston Chronicle)
Freese informed his story with emotion and eloquence as we gathered round his locker the night time he grew to become a World Collection hero for his hometown group. How he was so burned out that he give up baseball after highschool, and solely then did he start to know how a lot he cherished it. How he would always remember the individuals who had his again alongside the best way (and those who hadn’t). How accidents threatened to derail his Main League profession nearly earlier than it started. He was 28 years previous the night time a Cardinals legend was born. First, he lofted a game-tying triple over Cruz’s head in proper area, after which he despatched the Cardinals to Sport 7 with a house run within the eleventh. Afterwards, he appeared humbled and never fairly capable of get his thoughts round what had occurred. No screenwriter may have written it extra completely.
T.R. Sullivan, former MLB.com Rangers beat reporter
There have been many literary giants who’ve devoted their prose to baseball: Pulitzer Prize winners, Harvard and Yale students, best-selling authors. However solely a baseball beat author can perceive what it was like writing underneath intense deadline stress that night time in Sport 6 of the World Collection. That is the web. A narrative should be prepared as quickly as the sport is over. Rangers going to win 7-5 and their first World Collection title ever? Write it effectively. Freese ties it with a two-out, two-strike triple? Rewrite it. Nothing about lyrical bandboxes or social implications. Write it fast, however with readability and vigor.
A Hamilton go-ahead house run within the tenth? Now we’re speaking a Sport for the Ages. No writers block allowed. This one must be nice and turned over in 10 minutes. Berkman ties the sport within the tenth? The adrenaline is pumping. Then eleventh inning, Freese house run. Sport over. Rewrite once more for the fourth time. Write it quick, flip it in, go downstairs and ask 25 Rangers what it was prefer to be one strike away from successful the World Collection. One other night time as a baseball beat author.
Will Leitch, Columnist (an avowed Cardinals fan, then with New York Journal)
I used to be not at Busch Stadium for Sport 6 of the 2011 World Collection, however I had a wonderful excuse: My spouse was eight months pregnant with our first little one, and never solely did I not need to be in a special city than her, I truthfully simply wished to stare at her till she felt the slightest twitch so we may dash to the hospital. As a substitute, for Sport 6, I went to Foley’s, the official Cardinals fan bar of New York Metropolis, the place Andy Cohen and Jon Hamm scream alongside tons of of fellow Toasted Ravioli eaters all through the season. My spouse got here with me, however, as tends to occur with pregnant girls, she received scorching and drained, so she determined to go house across the sixth inning. She insisted I keep. I didn’t argue together with her.
I did, nevertheless, stroll her out to flag a cab, however the bar was so crowded that Foley’s proprietor needed to filter out a spot via a personal exit to get us out of there. This induced such a fuss that phrase unfold all through the bar that the sport was so intense that it induced Will Leitch’s spouse to enter labor. So after I returned to the bar to look at the remainder of the sport, folks checked out me, aghast, saying issues like, “I can’t consider you got here again.” “In fact I got here again,” I mentioned. “Are you watching this freaking sport?” Our son didn’t find yourself being born till November, however I by no means went again and corrected anyone. I form of like all of them believing the legend. It was that form of sport.
Anthony Castrovince, Columnist
In the course of the World Collection, when the variety of credentialed media grows considerably, groups are pressured to be inventive with media seating, creating auxiliary press containers which might be often located down the strains. Whereas some in my occupation will gripe about this location, I’ve at all times form of loved the completely different perspective it offered. And on this night time, at this epic Sport 6 at Busch Stadium, the place the makeshift auxiliary press field was equally located within the suites overlooking the right-field nook, the sideways sightline become a front-row seat for historical past.
I used to be mentally getting ready to make my transfer to the freight elevators the place my fellow media members and I might be carted like cattle to the bowels of the constructing for the postgame pressers, and I’ll always remember that picture of the ball crusing under us after which over the outstretched glove of Cruz on the warning monitor, my feeble mind barely capable of course of the mathematical truth that everyone had scooted house, it was a brand-new ballgame, and my tough draft revolving across the Rangers’ long-awaited triumph had been rendered moot. Only a month faraway from the fever dream of that remaining night time of the common season, when, amid all types of craziness, the Cardinals accomplished their historic Wild Card comeback, right here we have been once more. The remainder of the night is a haze, although I do bear in mind having a pc concern and, in consequence, an inordinately tough time writing my postgame piece on a sport that actually defied phrases.
Jon Paul Morosi, Nationwide Reporter
I used to be working for FoxSports.com on the time and was sitting within the press field with Mark Kriegel, our nationwide columnist. We determined to go away and stroll many of the approach down earlier than the underside of the ninth. The trek from the press field to the clubhouses at Busch Stadium is notoriously congested after a playoff sport. We wished to get a head begin, so we took the steps to the primary degree of the stadium and squeezed into the one place we may discover with a view — close to the aisle within the part behind house plate. The momentum of the inning took on a lifetime of its personal — the noise from the followers, the standard of the at-bats. As soon as Freese’s ball landed past Cruz’s glove, the place went delirious. As Freese’s ball went up, I had a sense that it was going to recover from Cruz’s head. There was one thing about the best way it was carrying, and Cruz’s path to it, that made the consequence predictable from our vantage level. We in all probability had probably the greatest views in the whole ballpark and knew a split-second earlier than most everybody else that the sport was going to be tied.
Chris Haft, former MLB.com Reporter
I’ve been lucky sufficient to cowl 4 Kentucky Derbies, and people races function a most great form of repetitiveness: When these horses hit the highest of the stretch, you don’t blink. Or breathe. Or transfer. Or converse (until you may have a very, actually, actually massive guess down, by which case you’re screaming your head off). Something can occur, and the scrumptious pressure all however paralyzes you.
That’s how I bear in mind these final three or 4 innings of World Collection Sport 6, 2011. To do something however watch each pitch with laser-like focus meant risking that you simply’d miss one thing inconceivable, compelling or simply ridiculously thrilling. When the ball sailed over Cruz’s glove, I’m fairly positive we already had reached the purpose the place my editor had shaped options for me: Execute story plan “A” if Playing cards win; execute story plan “B” if Rangers win. I’ve completely no recollection of what I wrote. I do do not forget that I left the ballpark feeling directly drained and energized, prompting me to seek for samples of Anheuser-Busch’s hottest merchandise.
Whenever you’re a younger sportswriter, the thought is to pay attention greater than you speak, to soak in what you possibly can. If I had an opportunity to speak with a reporter who coated Joe Carter’s walk-off in 1993, or Kirk Gibson’s homer in 1988, or Invoice Buckner’s goof in 1986, I requested. I questioned if I might ever cowl a World Collection that memorable.
Then 2011 occurred. It wasn’t a lot of a pure rivalry pitting the Cardinals towards the Rangers, however the video games have been so good that none of that mattered. When Pujols hit three house runs in Sport 3, I bear in mind being floored on the greatness I used to be watching. For Sport 6, I sat with a number of of my MLB.com teammates in an auxiliary press field down the right-field line. When Freese’s ninth-inning triple landed, that vantage gave us a point-blank view of the bedlam under.
Afterward, I bear in mind Pujols opining that followers — not simply St. Louis followers, however baseball followers across the nation — would bear in mind the sport for a very long time. It was the historical past I hoped I would in the future see, and Pujols was proper. I actually haven’t forgotten.
Of all of the World Collection I’ve coated for MLB.com relationship again to 2001, that is the one I bear in mind most vividly. The auxiliary press field was in a loge positioned simply above proper area and I distinctly bear in mind trying down and seeing Cruz enjoying as deep a proper area as I’ve ever seen. Rangers nearer Feliz had Freese all the way down to his remaining strike, after which Freese hit a ball to proper area and I believed “oh, that’s it,” however by some means — to at the present time I nonetheless don’t fairly understand how — the ball received over Cruz’s head, tipping off his glove and permitting two runs to attain. I used to be dumbfounded, all of us have been. I might like to see the Statcast information and catch chance on that play, as a result of as I bear in mind it, he was enjoying nearly together with his heels on the filth of the warning monitor. It simply appeared like he froze.