If this is any consolation to Brad Lidge, he is neither the first man in baseball history to surrender a pennant-losing home run, nor did he surrender the single most monstrous such shot when he threw Albert Pujols the slider that hung up on a thigh-high hook.
But if an Albert Pujols needs consolation after resurrecting his team with that kind of a three-run homer, he would have had the mother of all monstrous pennant-saving homers had it not been for that big window-and-girder panel separating the Minute Maid Park retractable roof from the tracks on which rolls the Houston Astros' home run train.
Tom Niedenfeuer might be tempted to pick up the phone, dial Lidge's cell phone, and offer a word of consolation that concludes with something like, "Buddy, at least you got one more chance at minimum to put that one behind you this year, this week." And Jack Clark might be tempted to pickup the phone, dial Pujols' cell phone, and offer a word of congratulations along the line of, "Buddy, you've made us proud."
Lidge probably would not have ended up on the dishonor roll of the greatly humiliated had it not been for David Eckstein, the human cockroach, whom he had down to his own and the St. Louis Cardinals' last strike of the season. The real cockroach can survive a nuclear holocaust, but there are those who think Eckstein might be the only human being with that kind of resilience, considering the way he survives everything thrown at him on a baseball field in spite of the ongoing — and by now nonsensical — analyses of his reputed shortcomings.
Eckstein snuck a two-strike single through a pair of lunging Astros left side fielders, and never mind accusing third baseman Morgan Ensberg of playing out of position, as some already have done. The only way to defense Eckstein is to hang a net around the front rim of the outfield grass. Do you think the Los Angeles Angels, licking their White Sox wounds, are going to watch Busch Stadium fans crossing their own version of the infamous red Thunder Stix every time Eckstein checks in at the plate Tuesday night, kicking themselves for buying the shinier tools at the cost of the shinier heart? The heart that just might have been the real Angels' heart, after all?
Then Jim Edmonds pried a walk out of Lidge, who looked a little too much like a nibbler and let the cockroach have second on the house first, but it might have been the smartest unintentional walk of the postseason. Normally, it is treacherous to walk an Edmonds with a Pujols next through the toll booth, but does any pitcher have that much to worry about against a man who has hit a lifetime .125 off him with one measly run batted in to show for eight such at-bats?
Not unless he throws him something to hit, even if he promises himself a fastball is not an option. And Lidge served Pujols a virtuoso first-pitch slider that banked so hard and down away from the plate that Pujols almost looked like a rookie lunging for it as it dipped below his bat head's trajectory. But then Lidge threw Pujols a second slider that traveled right down the pipe and hung up at the top of Pujols' thigh.
That was location enough for Pujols to send it on a five hundred foot flight, before Lidge finally turned the Cardinals aside so the Astros could do to Jason Isringhausen in the bottom of the ninth what they had done to him in the bottom of the eighth: nothing.
And meanwhile, somewhere in the record of Astro triumphs that recess with the smoke of the Minute Maid home run train, Lance Berkman's opposite-field chip shot into the short-porch Crawford Boxes, which turned a 2-1 deficit into the 4-2 lead they finally turned over to Lidge in the first place, was going to resemble just another might-have-been mash.
Andy Pettitte had nothing to show for his gallant Monday night start but a 2-1 deficit when he came out in the seventh, but he has everything to show Lidge about shrugging it off and getting the next one. And Pettitte can prove to Lidge that it isn't just the killifish who get baited. Pettitte and Roger Clemens were there when the coolest ninth inning barracuda in the ocean belched up two in the bottom of the ninth that meant the 2001 World Series ring for the Arizona Diamondbacks, a toddler franchise packed full of elders and big siblings.
"It's hard to relate it as far as that," said Pettitte to the Houston Chronicle of what his Astros teammate now had to feel. "The only difference is, that was it. I haven't talked to him — you've got to let him cool down a little. But Brad will shrug this off. He's got a great mentality to be a closer."
On the other hand, The Mariano was merely pried open for the tying and winning runs. And before you serve Lidge the 2004 Boston Red Sox, keep in mind that there, too, was The Mariano's armor-piercing begun by a one-strike-away stolen base. Rivera never threw the wrong slider over the wrong part of the plate to get hit for a shot that iron and glass kept from landing in downtown Houston.
But he did have to watch a little helplessly as Joe Torre pulled the infield in with Luis Gonzalez coming up. Pulling the infield in is designed to cut off a run and may be the single strategy most likely to get you killed in the eleventh hour. Gonzalez lofted a soft liner over second base that would have stopped in Alfonso Soriano's glove in regular positioning. So maybe The Mariano isn't the man to bring across a Lidge over troubled waters, after all.
You can sort of see and raise Torre if you call upon Felipe Alou just a year ago. His closer was already nudged out of the game, he was down to Wayne Franklin on the mound, the Dodgers were a run away from clinching the National League West with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the ninth. With Steve Finley coming up Alou pulled the infield and the outfield in. And Finley, an alumnus of the 2001 Snakes, knew only too well how futile was that idea. All he had to do was get something in the air. He got it in the air, past the infielders and the outfielders, and three rows up the right field bleachers.
Other Dodgers have felt rather than inflicted the pain, Tom Niedenfeuer because of his manager's non-call. Niedenfeuer committed no crime further than following Tommy Lasorda's non-order, against a different aggregation of Cardinals, with the Dodgers one out from the 1985 World Series. It wasn't Niedenfeuer's idea to leave first base unoccupied and pitch to Jack Clark, rather than put him on and live. Jack the Ripper hit a three-run bomb so far out of Dodger Stadium that rumors persist about the ball landing in nearby Glendale, possibly in what used to be Casey Stengel's garden.
"We still have great pitchers going for us and we can win this thing," Pettitte told the Chronicle. This team has dealt with serious adversity. We're a little stunned right now, but we can come back."
From wherever his troubled spirit rests, Donnie Moore may be tempted to wrap an arm around Lidge, maybe two, and tell him what Moore himself probably hungered too deeply to hear: "I know how it feels, brother. No way it don't hurt. Just don't be my kind of fool. Don't let it take you like an acid bath. Don't make my mistake. Don't let them break you the way I let them break me. And don't forget the way we did that you got another chance or two to take it back."
And if Lidge is attuned enough to such a brotherly gesture from the next world, he will likewise wrap an arm around Moore and promise him, "I'm gonna shake this one off and get them again. And I'm gonna do it for my guys, but I'm gonna do it for you and for everyone else who walked this road before me."
Of course Lidge may not have to wait for Donnie Moore on the extraterrestrial speed dial. Andy Pettitte needs only a few steps to reach. He might even have The Mariano lingering on his own speed dial.
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