The St. Louis Cardinals' David Freese celebrates with teammates after hitting a walk-off home run in Game 6 of the's World Series against the Texas Rangers, Oct. 27, 2011.
St. Louis could not come back again, right? In the bottom of the 10th, the Cardinals cut the lead to 9-8. With two outs and John Jay, who came up with two key late-inning hits after going 0-16 in the series, at third, Lance Berkman now had two strikes on him. As the drama captivated the country, Berkman wasn’t living the dream. “Heck, when you’re down to you’re last strike, no one thinks, This is fun,” says Berkman. “Loose is not how I would describe myself.” Jitters or not, Berkman tied it up again, incredibly, with a single to right-center field. “It was certainly the greatest game I’ve ever been a part of,” Berkman says.
(See more about Josh Hamilton of the Rangers.)
After the Rangers failed to score in the top half of the 11th, Freese led off the bottom half for St. Louis. Texas reliever Mark Lowe threw him a full-count change-up. “I knew I got it good, but with this stadium, you never know,” Freese says. His shot landed in a patch of grass beyond the center-field fence. “Yeah, I saw the usher trying to keep everybody off the grass. But that obviously didn’t work.” Twenty years ago nearly to the day, legendary Cardinals announcer Jack Buck famously said, “See you tomorrow night!” after Kirby Puckett won Game 6 of the 1991 World Series with an 11th inning home run for the Minnesota Twins. (Buck was calling the game for CBS.) Freese forced another Game 7 and Jack’s son Joe into the same commentary line on Fox: See you tomorrow night.
Freese says he didn’t hear much as he jogged the bases, and he thought about the time that former Cardinal Jim Edmonds won a Game 6, of the 2004 National League Championship Series, with a last-inning home run. “As I was rounding second, I was looking for my team,” he says. They were crowded around home plate, preparing to mob him. Freese spiked his helmet before being enveloped. Nearly an hour after the game, some Busch Stadium fans still didn’t want to leave.
(See more on the 2004 World Series.)
In the World Series, there have many memorable Game 6s. Carlton Fisk of the Boston Red Sox famously waved his home run fair in Game 6. The ’86 New York Mets made their comeback in Game 6 against the Sox. Puckett’s shot was a classic. But this Game 6 set the new standard. No other had these twists. The sloppy start will be part of its charm. Down the road, when talking about this game, you won’t even have to refer to it by year. Just call it “Game 6,” like a Brazilian soccer star with one name.
Even if Texas somehow recovers to win Game 7, this one is still an all-time classic. Holland says the Texas locker room wasn’t a morgue afterward, as you might expect. “We’re not going to sit around and sulk about what happened,” Holland says. “We’ll go in, take a nice shower, and rub it off … You can tell everybody was frustrated, but it wasn’t a silence thing.” As Rangers manager Ron Washington walked past a Busch Stadium attendant on his way to his postgame interview, the red-clad man chirped, “You won’t be sipping champagne tonight.” (What happened to that Midwestern politeness?) Rangers president Nolan Ryan strolled slowly through the bowels of Busch Stadium, with his wife walking a step ahead of them, headed toward a night of irritation, not celebration.
The St. Louis clubhouse, for its part, was no party scene. The Cardinals know they still have work to do Friday night. Freese, his T-shirt shredded thanks to rabid teammates, signed a bat and gave it to the fan who caught and returned his home run ball. (The fan started getting greedy, though, asking Freese for group pictures of Cardinals players. Freese knew this would be impossible to pull off but had to be polite about it. Awkward.)
A few minutes later, Freese stood at his locker, finally ready to wind the night down. This was the first walk-off home run of his life. “I’ve never met my team at home plate,” Freese says. Not in Little League, not in high school. Never.
(See pictures of Anheuser-Busch and St. Louis.)
You picked the perfect time to hit your first one, someone noted. “What if it had been tomorrow night?” Freese says. We could only imagine, but don’t count on it. Don’t get greedy. We’re lucky enough to have Game 6.
Gregory is a staff writer at TIME. Keeping Score, his sports column for TIME.com, appears on Fridays. Find him on Twitter at @seanmgregory. You can also continue the discussion on TIME‘sFacebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.