Chapter 22: There's No Place Like Home

We had our ace ready for Game Six. We were playing before a packed house on our home field, and we were coming off an inspiring Game Five win by Sam.

If anybody could take this Series to seven games, it would be Shiggie. The tall Japanese lefty fireballer had won 17 games for us that year, against only 7 losses. There was nobody I'd have rather seen take the mound for the Orioles in a crucial game.

If there was a game seven, we'd be on shakier ground. But we had Rob Murray, who'd beaten the Cards for us once already, and he had looked damned good doing it. Rob wasn't the pitcher Shiggie was, but he'd do.

If we could just get to him.

The Cardinals started their old timer, Matt Morris, still effective now, in his middle thirties, after a distinguished career as a starter. He was a right-hander with lots of stuff. He'd been a 20-game winner again this season.

Both clubs had scored a lot of runs in the Series, but this time, both were getting shut down by the pitching. Morris had a no-hitter through four, and Shiggie had struggled a little more, but hadn't let anybody past second base.

In the fifth, we loaded the bases against Morris with only one out -- his no-hitter quickly forgotten now. But we didn't score.

In the eighth, Shiggie was still going strong, but with only one out, Pujols got a double in the gap and Willard Everett, our right fielder, tried to pick it up three times at the fence before finally grasping it and throwing it in to the cutoff man.

Pujols took advantage and ended up on third. He came in on a sacrifice fly for the only run of the game to that point.

We did nothing in the eighth, and Shiggie set them down in order in the ninth.

It was time for some heroics, or the Series was over. Morris had been nearly unhittable, but damned if Tony La Russa, the Cardinals' manager, didn't pull him anyway, in favor of their strong young closer, Nathan Washington.

We needed two for a walk-off win, and we got just one. Brian Roberts coaxed a lazy fly ball over the high right field wall into the SRO section. It wasn't exactly Ruthian, but it counted for one run.

That's all we could get, but at least we'd taken them into extra innings.

I was squirming on the bench by the time we'd reached the 13th inning. I'd seen two different situations arise where Paul could have really used my help. But there wasn't any way. After the tenth inning, Paul had finally pulled Shiggie out of the game and given the ball to our closer, Freddie Gonzalez.

Freddie held them hitless for two innings and then gave way in the 13th to Ernie Borowski, a starter, pitching on short rest. Borowski had been our losing pitcher in Game Four.

Ernie gave up a homer to Scott Rolen, making it 2-1 Cards.

In our half of the inning, Melvin Mora doubled and stole third, and came in on a sac fly. It was 2-2, and we were still alive.

If anybody there in the stands that day had left early, it wasn't evident. The Oriole fans were pleading for a win.

But In the 14th, Pujols hit an opposite-field homer with a man on, and the place got very quiet.

With nobody out, Cary Zane got a pinch-hit triple in our half of the 14th. The whole place was in a frenzy, but our guys just couldn't make it happen, and Zane died on third.

It was over. We'd lost the World Series, four games to two.

There were lots of post-mortems. The clubhouse was packed with reporters and TV cameras and practically every Oriole player was being interviewed by somebody. It was pretty much impossible for anyone to take a shower in that melee, even if the assorted females milling around the lockers weren't considered an adequate deterrent to nudity.

I was in uniform, but not in much need of a shower, so I changed into civvies as unobtrusively as possible and tried to edge out the door.

A Baltimore Sun reporter snagged me, though, before I could get out of the room, and asked if I'd answer a few.

"What are you going to do about the injury?" he asked.

"I'm going down to Birmingham, let Dr. Andrews have a look, see what he says."

"You're what, now, Alex? Thirty-three, right? --Can you come back, if you need the Tommy John surgery?"

"I don't know," I said, honestly enough. "Maybe it'll turn out to be a little less serious. Maybe I'll get good news. I'll just have to wait and see."