Our writers choose their favourite moments from the 2011 MLB season. Please nominate yours
Another summer is over, another World Series has been claimed, so it's time to reflect and remind ourselves of baseball's golden moments that will warm us through the winter. Here are nine suggestions from our baseball team - which is in no way meant to be a definitive list - please feel free to share memories of these or others below.
David Lengel's moments of the year:
1) It's still fresh, but Game Six of the World Series in 2011 has to be on this list. Down to their final strike, twice, the St. Louis Cardinals, the little engine that could, overcame yet again to force a seventh and decisive game. Never mind this was also a slop-fest that included no less than five errors - it was drama of the highest caliber, so enticing that for a brief moment I was at peace with Tony La Russa.
2) September 28th. It was the final day of the regular season, one that capped two of the most spectacular collapses/comebacks in baseball history. Baseball fans were glued to their sets, flicking from game to game, back and forth, all evening long to see who would win the race for the AL and NL wild card playoff spots. The Cardinals, once down 10.5 games to Atlanta, came all the way back to tie the bumbling Braves, setting up the season's final day. St. Louis blew out the Astros 8-0, and then we watched the Phillies and Braves in an excruciating 13 inning duel, which the Phillies won 4-3, setting up the Cards improbable playoff run. Meanwhile the Rays, who were nine games behind Boston in the wild card race on September 4, had clawed into a tie with the Red Sox. Boston was up 3-2 against Baltimore with their closer on the mound. But Jonathan Papelbon blew the save, and Tampa, down seven runs to the Yankees, scored six in the eighth inning, and then tied it up with a pinch-hit homer by Dan Johnson, who was down to his final strike. Evan Longoria's 12th inning blast sent the Rays to the post-season, and set off a wild chain of events in Beantown.
3) I'm a sucker for the triple play, so triple plays on back-to-back nights in August nearly sent me over the edge. The Brewers was unusual in that it came on a routine double play ball. The second baseman threw to the shortstop who fired to first base. But the Dodgers Matt Kemp was coming around to try and score from third base. Prince Fielder threw home, and bang bang bang, inning over. Spectacular. Then there was the more traditional, 5-4-3 triple play between Boston and Tampa Bay, a wild moment that was just the start of what was to take place between these clubs down the stretch.
Steve Busfield's moments of the year:
4) CitiField in August and the Mets prove everything you've ever heard about them to be true: in the midst of a blistering batting run, Jose Reyes smacks a home run, the Big Apple rises, and the Mets are leading the Florida Marlins 3-2 after eight innings. At the top of the ninth, the bases get loaded, but a routine grounder goes to second baseman Justin Turner, who, in a panic, throws high and wide of Lucas Duda at first base, two runs score and, Keystone Cops-style, the Mets are losing 4-3. They lose, of course. Fabulously entertaining. Deeply frustrating.
5) As David has stolen the drama that was September 28 - when I was blogging four games simultaneously - how about the next few weeks of dysfunction and recrimination in Boston: the manager leaves, the General Manager goes to the Chicago Cubs, but potentially most damaging of all was the bloodletting and public airing of grievances in the Boston Globe. Apparently star pitchers Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, and John Lackey preferred "drinking beer, eating fast-food fried chicken, and playing video games in the clubhouse" while their team disintegrated. The implosion was memorably chronicled in the darkly brilliant fake twitter account of @Not CoachTito.
Some New Englanders even set their anger set to music (?):
6) It's August, Philadelphia are heading towards 100+ wins in the season but the Phillies Big Bats are finding it hard to get going against the Dodgers. I've been watching a masterful pitching performance from Cliff Lee up close, but in the seventh inning he does what his teammates have been failing to do and hits the ball out of the park. That is why pitchers bat.
Michael Solomon's moments of the year:
7) Yuniesky Betancourt's behind-the-back double play: It should have been an easy single up the middle, but instead Milwaukee Brewers shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt scooped it up and made a behind-the-back throw to Rickie Weeks who fired it to Prince Fielder for the double play. Even the Harlem Globetrotters can't figure out how he did that.
8) Albert Pujols' three home runs: So what if he was hitless in the previous two World Series games or went 0 for 10 after Game 3, Albert Pujols' three dingers in Game 3 of the Series was an immortal performance that put him in a baseball trinity with the Babe Ruth and Mr. October himself.
9) Derek Jeter's 3000th hit: Hate the Yankees all you want, but you have to respect Derek Jeter, who long ago amassed enough numbers and rings to have a spot reserved in Cooperstown. This season, Jeter added to his highlight reel with a 3000th hit so dramatic that it brought Minka Kelly to tears. What made the moment even more special was that the fan who caught that home run ball, Christian Lopez, returned it simply because "Mr. Jeter deserved it."
These are just some of our favourite baseball moments from 2011. Please share more below:
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/nov/03/mlb-2011-game-six-derek-jeter
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