This Is Where I Wish I Was Last Night

to see this:



I wish I could teleport.

Colorado Rockies: 2007 National League Champions

It's downright crazy. I don't know that I believe it. My reaction was rather subdued; I must be dreaming. Matt Holliday getting hit by a pitch and turning into the Incredible Hulk the next at-bat, as he did tonight, crushing a monster three-run blast to make it 6-1 after Seth Smith had a pinch-hit, two-run double and Kaz had an RBI single. Of course, if I thought it was going to be easy from there, I was wrong. The shakes and the hyperventilating from when Bad Brian Fuentes reared his ugly head to allow a three-run homer to Chris Snyder in the eighth -- making it 6-4 -- are barely subsiding. Especially after that, Fuentes allows a triple, Manny Corpas comes in, strikes out Tony Clark, and for the top of the ninth -- groundout, double, popout (on 3-0) and groundout, from local goat Eric Byrnes, to punch the Rockies' ticket to their first World Series ever.

I need to not go broke on NL Champs gear. I love them all. I want to read everything about this magical night. I want four more wins and a parade through Denver. And no, I don't think this is too much. We just may be that team of destiny, and I've waited for this. And nothing will ever stop me from wishing passionately I was in Colorado, screw school and everything else. I yearn to be on 20th and Blake with all the other fans who love this team the way I do.

COLORADO ROCKIES.

2007 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPIONS

Let that one settle in for a while. I sure need to.

Come On. You Knew It.

So the Rockies, a few weeks ago, were one strike away from being eliminated in a game they weren't even playing in. Trevor Hoffman against Tony Gwynn, Jr. The son of arguably the most famous Padre ever delivered the tying triple, the Brewers went on to win, and since then, the purple power has bordered on the absolutely insane. And yet again, they proved it tonight. High-scoring offenses? Hitter's parks? Slugfest predictions? Phillies in 5? Screw 'em all. The Rockies won 2-1 tonight, on the back of an RBI triple from Kaz and a pinch-hit, tiebreaking RBI single from Jeff Baker (not to mention an absolutely stellar performance from Ubaldo Jimenez, in the game of his life) to sweep the Phillies and advance to a NLCS matchup with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Say it. Believe it. The Colorado Rockies, with four more wins, will be the National League champions.

Wrap your mind around it. The morons at TBS, aside from openly shilling for the Phils the whole time, certainly couldn't.

Breathe that purple air. Dream in a violet haze. Love your team. Believe in them. I have to say, we're looking an awful lot like destiny right now.

A lot of things can change between now and the four days some idiot decided to allocate in between the NLDS and NLCS. The Wild Wild West is no longer the Worst, it is the Best. D-backs vs. Rox, an NL winner I can get behind in the Series either way. This is crazy. I can't describe what they're doing. It's amazing, and I love it.

And I don't want to hear anything about the Phillies choking this series away. They showed up to play and they got beaten by a better team. Give them credit, it actually does happen. The Rockies were the ones that managed to stay hot following their incredible late-season surge, and to jump through hoops to avoid giving them credit and insisting the Phillies beat themselves is just lame. The Rockies hit, pitched, and played defense, and that is how you win championships.

Rocktober, baby. Keep the faith.

Playoffs, Day 9: OH. MY. GOD.

[swoon]

[faint]

[thud]

Okay. So. I love my Cardinals dearly, but my heart just can't take the pressure of watching a Game 7 after Chris Carpenter did his damndest but Braden Looper blew it last night in an agonizing Game 6, forcing the series to the limit. Game 7s are good for baseball. NOT for my nerves.

So I didn't look at a single baseball-related site all day long. Not one. Except for the Rockies blog, which is lightly trafficked and where I might be less likely to see if they were losing. That was it. I stayed utterly away until 11:30. Then my cell phone rang. I saw it was my sister. I thought, "OH MY GOD WHY IS SHE CALLING I THINK I KNOW..."

I picked up. She said, "Do you want to know?" I said, "YES." She said, "They won."

I went apeshit. I screamed and began to shake and began to babble and laugh in incoherent happiness. I felt like a million dollars. I was pure light and happiness and joy. I was trembling all over and ecstatic. It was an amazing feeling.

And yes. HELL. YES. Jeff Suppan and Oliver Perez duel, keeping it tied at one all the way until the ninth. Scott Rolen is robbed of a two-run homer in the sixth. (As you can see, I came up to speed very quickly). And then in the top of the ninth, Yadier Freakin' Molina pumps a two-run homer to shut Shea Stadium up very quickly. It starts coming back to life in the bottom of the ninth. My husband gets two outs, but also permits two baserunners. Then he walks Paul LoDuca to bring up Cardinals murderer, Carlos Beltran.

What does my husband do? He strikes him out. HE STRIKES OUT CARLOS MOTHERFUCKING BELTRAN. On three straight pitches. LOOKING. And the Cardinals are on their way to the 2006 World Series. I bought an NL champs shirt pronto. I spend too much money on my teams, but you'd better believe that I love them to death.

Everybody. EVERYBODY thought that the Mets were going to wipe their shoes on the Cardinals. What do the Cardinals do but WIN IN SEVEN GAMES. And now they're on their way to face the other team that no one thought would make it out of the first round, for an All-Underdog World Series.

If you see a girl walking around SLC tomorrow, wearing an Adam Wainwright T-shirt and a giant smile, that's me. *

* Of course I'll be wearing something else as well. You people and your perverted minds.

Presenting Your 2006 National League Champions:

THE SAINT LOUIS CARDINALS.

I'm so happy right now... I can't even tell you how it feels.

Playoffs, Day 8: A Sound as if a Million Sportswriters Cried Out In Terror

....and were suddenly silenced.

Wow. Just wow. I think that the only reason I wasn't crushed about the A's was because the Cardinals were still alive, and making it a respectable series at that. That feeling was vindicated tonight in another amazing Game Five for the Redbirds. Last year at this time, Albert Pujols was launching moonshots off Brad Lidge that probably still have yet to come down, and the series switched back to St. Louis for a sixth game, which the Astros won. Now, the series is switching back to New York for a sixth game, and if the Cards win, they're in. Who would have believed it. No one, absolutely no one, including to some degree myself, gave them a chance in this series. Certain smug Yahoo! sportswriters were publishing snide opinion pieces that the baseball world might as well crown the Mets the champs.

Well, said sportswriters can't be feeling that confident today. Jeff Weaver turned in six outstanding innings - yes, Jeff Weaver. Baby Dunc, also known as Chris Duncan, can't hit lefties and was put in against a lefty that was mowing the Cards down. What does he do? He hits a home run. King Albert retorts immediately after the Mets had scored two early runs with a homer of his own. And Adam... ah, I mean my husband, came in with two on and two out in the top of the eighth and absolutely bedeviled Jose Valentin (who had hurt the Cards earlier) with filthy stuff to end the inning before making similarly quick work of the ninth. I'm so in love with him I don't think it's possible for me to be more. I need to wear my Carpenter shirt tonight because Chris is pitching tomorrow with a chance to punch the Cards' ticket to the 2006 World Series, but DAMN. Adam, my baby.

Wow. To say that I'm thrilled with this turn of events would be a major understatement. And I know that I should write about something besides baseball, but baseball is my life right now. And speaking of writing about baseball, that's actually a job of mine. Yep, I'm now a sportswriter for The Phoenix, SLC's school newspaper, as I was recruited by a friend on the softball team who knows about my mutual passions for a) baseball and b) writing. How enthusiastic am I about this job? I already prepared a piece - 700 words on the World Series. I did two versions of it, one with the Mets as NL champs and one with the Cards as NL champs. I pray I never have a need to send the Mets' one to my editor.

The Mets have to be worried. They admitted they felt tremendous pressure to wrap this up in six games, and now that's not possible, unless of course the Cards wrap up things in six games, which they have a good chance of doing with Carp on the mound tomorrow. They have to win two games started by John Maine and Oliver Perez while the opponent throws the NL Cy Young winner and a guy with a 2.39 ERA after the All-Star break. That has to be in their heads just a little bit. Game Fives are pivotal for series that are tied at 2 - something like 6 of 7 teams that won 5 went on to capture the title.

LET'S GO RED-BIRDS!!!!!

Playoffs, Day 7: Green and Gold Train Derailed

Not that it was ever really on the tracks for the ALCS. The Kats just flat outplayed them. Hitting, pitching, defense, and fire, the Tigers played like world champions and the A's...well...didn't. I'm not as upset as I thought I might be, because after watching the travesty of a Game 1, I was really irritated and thought, "If they win the next game, they have a chance. If they don't, they're done." That proved to be the case and saved me from probably severe emotional trauma. So they're done for the season now, and I have to wait until 2007 for them to play meaningful games again.

The Cards, meanwhile, are deviously going about surprising people. After a pathetic showing Game 1, they rebounded by winning Games 2 and 3, one on a clutch homer by So Taguchi and one on a brilliant effort from Jeff Suppan. They are making an actual series out of what many people predicted would be a Mets sweep. Anthony Reyes goes against Oliver Perez today with a chance to bump the edge to 3-1. Let's hope that Good Reyes shows up - the one that shut out the White Sox for eight innings after the Pale Hose had scored an ungodly amount of runs against the Cards (33) in the past two games, and not the Reyes that allowed 7 runs in 2 innings against the Diamondbacks. Reyes is talented, but totally unpredictable.

As for Perez... that may be interesting. I actually like him, and have for a while, despite his mercurial nature and propensity to suck after a brilliant 2004 season, but I hope the Cardinals pummel him. I really want at least one of my teams to do the deed. Although, if it's a Cardinals/Tigers World Series... cats eat birds, you know. Erp.

Might post some other stuff later.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

...a few extra pics from today's Cards celebration.


Well, they must like him, and small wonder, after that man put the team on his broad back and hauled them into the postseason with a little help from Carp. What does victory taste like, Albert? An overload of alcohol?



Wow, I didn't know he could do this. Albert's really cuttin' loose...



Good christ, Albert. What is this, the Pujols Multi-Pronged Dozen-Beer Backloading Assault on Dave Duncan? (Chris Duncan's Papi). Man, is Albert ever lubricated by now. Reminds me of Adam, bless his heart. They had him on for an interview, and he was gibbering wildly, too hyper to answer coherently, and drinking beer in between questions.

Adam, please call me.


Tyler Johnson and Jeff Weaver cut loose. Wow, check out the tattoos on Ty. He seems like a sweet and quiet type, but he does need to get rid of the hunk of chew in his jaw. And Weaver's mullet is a monstrosity. You're not in California anymore, punk. But pitch well in Game 1 and it won't bother me that much.

(For the record, here is what Ty looks like when whatever remaining brain cells he has are not soused in alcohol. Cute kid, huh?)



And here's Ty's pal, catcher Yadi Molina, getting drenched by John Rodriguez, who has a blog. Evidently, he shaved his head, AND remembered his goggles, something which Adam did not. You need to plan these celebrations better, darling, if you're going to be in more. (Hint hint).



I'm out for now. Enjoy!

Playoffs, Day 6: I Lied. There Is No Other Man For Me

....besides him.



Yeah, yeah, you say. Why am I singling in on somebody who only closed out the ninth inning, instead of the true hero - a certain Christopher John Carpenter - who after looking pretty damn shaky in the first inning, locked in and locked down and went seven of them, only allowing two runs, in a brilliant ace-like outing to show all the Redbird doubters that the Cards are never dead?

Dunno. Why am I centering on him? Because I love him? Awww, I suppose I can give Carp some love as well.



I love you too, Chris Carpenter. You and Adam have the most adorable smiles on this entire team.

As you may have guessed by now, the Cardinals secured their playoff berth today with a 6-2 win over the Padres. Carpenter had a bad first inning, as mentioned, but he's Chris mothafuckin’ Carpenter, and he doesn't give up easily to a bunch of ballplayers named after an order of tonsured nincompoops. He instead, brought the pain. 96-mile-an-hour fastballs paired with a devastating, disorienting big-hook curveball, a filthy slider, and just plain unfair breaking stuff. The Padres didn’t have a chance.

By the top of the eighth, however, Carp was gassed, since the Cardinals did not allow him to sit down for more than thirty seconds at a time, seeing an average of 1.6 pitches per at-bat, which all added up to scant rest for him. Therefore, it was probably understandable that a pair of dink singles to open the eighth finally chased him. However, what threatened to make the game too close for comfort was put out by the firemen corps now known as the Cards bullpen, instead of the fire-starters. It is a nice change. Ty Johnson and Josh Kinney did their thing again and the ball was handed off to Adam to inaugurate the ninth.

Of course, he does his thing... kid is too nasty and amazing for words. Not before he let his nerves get the best of him a bit, and allowed a pair of base hits, but neither of them scored, and he got a little sweet revenge by getting major pest Dave Roberts to ground out to Albert for the final out, setting off a wild celebration in Redbird Land.

So, we'll see if they can pull off the scrappy underdog mojo as effectively as they did in the NLDS, in which all the so-called experts at ESPN gave them zero chance of getting out of the first round. In case you've noticed, almost all of ESPN's picks are wrong to date, and I love it.

Also, I'm planning to see if I can actually bring myself to pony up $250 for NLCS Game 2 tickets at Shea Stadium. I'm going to have to see if I can rope a few of my guy friends, Steve and Nick, into coming with me. However awesome it would be, I'm scared of going alone, since I'd be an eighteen-year-old girl in the colors of the enemy riding back and forth on the subway at night. Not a good idea. If not, I may get together with some other of the NYC-area Viva El Birdos posters to invade a bar in the Big Apple and watch the game. I'll be the one with a ponytail, a Cards hat, and a Wainwright #50 shirt.

Wow, this post is way more coherent than some of my other celebratory posts. Probably because I cheated, and cut-and-pasted some of it from a bit I already wrote for my sister. But before I sign off, I must leave you with this photo and its caption (major hat tip to Deadspin).


The Happy Italian Vegetarian Lawyer Genius Elf