But while the game was one of the most exciting you’ll ever see it featured baseball at its best and worst. To casual fans, the offensive display in that game was highly entertaining and exactly what they want to see, lots of runs and shifts in momentum. However for the purists, the display in game six and the Series in general was simply offensive due to the numerous mistakes made by players and managers throughout the seven-game set.
To them, the pitching and fielding were brutal and the only redeeming qualities were produced by the hitters. For example, the Rangers walked in four runs in their 6-2 loss in the final game and simply blew the previous game with shoddy play. But while this may be true from a technical standpoint, the reason fans will never forget game six is because of the unpredictability of it as well as the disbelief it produced among fans.
Nobody’s going to remember a well-pitched 2-1 game-six win, but nobody will ever forget the 10-9 come-from-behind 11-inning soap opera. It might not have been baseball at its best, but it was still baseball’s finest hour in many years since it captivated millions of viewers across the world. And that’s what sports are supposed to do.
I’m sure those who like to wager on baseball games must have bet the house on the Cardinals to take game seven. It was obvious the World Series was never in the cards for the Rangers after coming within one pitch of winning it the night before. St. Louis had all of the momentum on their side along with fate. Their 11th World Series win now ranks them second all time behind the New York Yankees who are a long way out in front with 27 championships.
St. Louis played four elimination-facing games in the postseason and became the fifth wild card team to take the championship. They were 10.5 games out of the race in late August, but their never-say-die attitude saw them not only make the playoffs, but win it all. There were numerous stand-out players on the Cardinals during the playoff push, but David Freese stood out and captured the World Series MVP award.
Freese batted .348 in the World Series with five of his eight hits being for extra bases. In the entire postseason he belted five home runs and a record 21 RBI in 18 games with a .397 batting average. He also won the MVP award for the League Championship Series, becoming the sixth player in history to do so.
For the Rangers, it was the second straight year they’ve lost in the Fall Classic, but they can’t really blame anybody but themselves. They went 46 games without losing two in a row and then dropped the last two of their season. The franchise is still without a World Series championship despite making it to the final the past two years.
