We were living in the mountains of California at the time, in a little town north of Los Angeles called Frazier Park. Megan was pregnant with our second daughter, late summer was turning into fall. What a weekend it was shaping up to be. A four game series with the Padres. Late season with the pennant on the line. On Friday I took the kid Maddie to see game one of the series. We sat in the nosebleeds and watched Greg Maddux pitch 6 1/3 no-hit innings, getting the win for the Dodgers. I thought that was something special. Saturday and Sunday didn’t go well, we needed Monday in a big way.
Andrew had moved to Vegas a couple years ago but took time off from running the hair salon to come down for the weekend. The forest fires were raging just over the hills towards Ventura, and as the day dawned the smoke tinted the world with a mystical orange haze. Andrew had never been to Frazier Park, and I showed him around. Mike’s Pizza’s cheesy breadsticks, the woods. That’s more or less the whole tour. We had to take the back road up to Mt. Pinos to avoid the Forest Ranger who had shut the road down due to the fires. We rambled over rocks and had a very competitive stone throwing contest. The fire didn’t get us.
Andrew, Maddie, Preggie Meggie, and myself loaded the car and headed down the hill towards Chavez Ravine, it was Monday September 18, 2006. Andrew had gotten us prime tickets, the best I’d ever had. Right behind home plate, maybe 30 rows back. We had barely gotten our seats when the roller coaster started. The game was billed as a pitchers duel between Brad Penny and Jake Peavy. In the early innings emotions ran high, and Mariano Duncan (Dodgers first base coach, of all people) got into a shouting match with Peavy as the inning changed. The pitchers duel quickly turned into an old fashioned (or late-ninities fashioned) shootout. Penny and Peavy were both gone by the 5th, with 4 earned runs a piece.
The Padres scored 2 in the eighth. The Dodgers got one back. Regular old Dodger fans aren’t known to be die-hards. The saying “come in the third, leave in the seventh” was coined for them. As things began to break down in the ninth people began to get up and leave. The Padres scored. Then scored again. More fans headed towards the exits. The Padres’ fans we had been jawing at all night started to get a little more confident. The Padres scored again. Three runs in the top of the ninth. Things looked dire. Things looked bleak. More fans left at the half-inning. I felt sick to my stomach, frustrated that it had come to this. A long hard fought season, and this was how it was going to end? Dropping three games in a four game series to the Padres of all teams. As angry as we got, we stayed in our seats. Why? Because that’s what fans do. You stay to the end. Sports are no place to give up on your team. Like with family and favorite movies, blind loyalty is required. This is your team, you cheer for them until the end.
It’s at this point that I believe the Padres made their major mistake. Because they’d opened up a four run lead instead of bringing in Hall of Fame closer Trevor Hoffman, a notorious Dodger killer, they opted to save his arm and let someone named Jon Adkins come in to finish the game. Jeff Kent led off the inning for the Dodgers. Jeff Kent is a crusty old man. He keeps to himself, he doesn’t have much patience for youngsters with hype. But he brings his game to the ballpark every single day, and every single at bat. Old Man Kent led off the ninth with a home run. We cheered. He rounded the bases like a professional, no fanfare. But he gave us a glimmer of hope. He was all business coming back to the dugout. He just sat down, no celebrating. JD Drew came to the plate. He drilled one to the deep right center field bleachers. Now something was happening. The Padres called on Hoffman to stop the bleeding. Hope was alive, but it was a distant hope. A long shot. A hope against hope. We sat restless as the old closer warmed up. Antsy anticipation.
In 2006 Russell Martin wasn’t a two-time All-Star, he wasn’t a gold glove winning catcher, he was just a guy who had come out of nowhere to win a place in our hearts and a reputation for being able to handle the staff with confidence. Evidently, he either didn’t know that Trevor Hoffman was supposed to strike him out, or he knew it and just didn’t care. Russell Martin took the first pitch from Hoffman and drove it out of the park. Three home runs in a row. At this point we started cheering, and we didn’t stop. After the Martin home run, it wasn’t a question of hope any more. Momentum, which had subtly shifted to our side but had been obscured from our consciences because of Hoffman’s presence, was gaining steam. The feeling was, we couldn’t be stopped. We screamed and yelled and pounded our seats. People started coming back into the stadium from the parking lot.
The fourth batter of the ninth inning was Marlon Anderson. Marlon was a late season pickup, regularly a second baseman he had been put out in left field in September when Andre Ethier’s performance dropped off (later explained by a shoulder injury). Marlon was a nobody under normal circumstances, a guy who bounced around filling a gap here and a hole in the lineup there. Tonight Marlon Anderson was king of the universe. He finished off the miracle. Four consecutive home runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to tie the ball game. Looking back, it is easy to remember Anderson for his role in the ninth. I’ll never forget the image of him rounding third, head bent down, barely able to suppress a smile of disbelief as he slaps a low five with the base coach. It’s easy to overlook the fact that he played the game of his career: 5-5, 2 HR, 3 runs, and a triple. That’s a career night. Just like the three batters before him, Marlon Anderson rose to the opportunity that was placed before him.
Unfortunately, that only tied the game. 3 quick outs sent it to extra innings. The Padres picked up a run, but it didn’t seem devastating after what had happened in the ninth. We knew that anything could happen.
Rudy Seanez came on to pitch for the Padres in the tenth. He promptly walked Kenny Lofton to set up the grand finale. Nomar Garciaparra took a fastball over the left field wall to end it. He knew it was gone the moment he hit it. A fist pump at the plate as we all exploded for the final time. I glanced around for the yappy Padre fans who had made smart play and exited quickly. I’m still convinced that Rudy Seanez, a decidedly average pitcher who was a part of the Dodgers bullpen for all of ‘07, was kept on the entire next season as special thanks for his role in this game. And I am perfectly ok with that allocation of funds.
4 consecutive HR’s in the 9th to tie it + 1 HR in the 10th to end it. It’s now commonly referred to by Dodger fans as the 4+1 game.
The thing about this game that I will never forget is a feeling that is perfectly captured in Act 1 of this radio show: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1155 (it’s long, but worth it). While I found myself on the right side of the runaway train, so to speak, the feeling of being completely taken over by circumstances was the same. Things escalated beyond the norm, the situation took us all over. I’m a fairly reserved person in general. I screamed until my stomach hurt and I couldn’t stand up straight. My cheeks hurt from the perma-grin. I found myself hugging strangers, and standing up on my seat just to scream in euphoric disbelief. In short, I completely lost it. I’ve never experienced anything as unexpectedly exhilarating. We all just stood there for fifteen minutes after the game had ended listening to Vinny’s call being re-broadcast for us. We cheered Vinny in his box seat above us. We stood around some more. We just didn’t want to go.
It’s a badge of honor to say that I was there at the 4+1 game. But in reality, luck had a lot to do with it. I just showed up in the right place at the right time and stayed there until the end.
As I embark on this new venture with 4+1 Productions I’m anticipating some ups and downs. Failed attempts and lessons learned. But I also have a feeling that at some point I’ll be the right guy, in the right place, at the right time. And even when the situation looks doubtful, you better believe I’ll stay until the end.
Tags: baseball, Dodgers, stories
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Jake,
I loved this story! (And I really was curious about the name, so thanks for providing it.) Not that you’ll need a backup–but you might think about sports writing . . .
Best of luck on your new endeavor!!