“You can’t sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You’ve got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That’s why baseball is the greatest game of them all.” – Earl Weaver
To recap, the Royals were playing their first playoff game in 29 years, the same night my grandpa, a huge fan, underwent a risky surgical procedure. In the 6th inning, the Royals’ pitching had collapsed and the A’s had surged to a 7-3 lead – a deficit no playoff team had ever come back from. To win, the Royals would need to score at least 8 runs – and they had scored 8 runs in a single game only a few times all year. Their playoff appearance was all but dead.
In the bottom of the 8th inning, with 6 outs to go, Alcides Escobar singled.
Now, there’s been a lot of math done by the stats nerds on when it’s appropriate to steal a base. Stealing a base does one thing for you: It raises your odds of scoring that single run, as it gets easier for you to reach home from third or second than it would from second or first. However, if you get caught stealing, you erase a base runner and give up your team’s most precious resource: outs (remember, each team only gets 27 total). So in the 8th inning of this wild card game, Royals fans were horrified to see Escobar do one thing: He took off from first to steal second. Down 4 runnings, they didn’t need higher odds of a single run – they needed a big inning to have a prayer, and if Escobar had been caught, it would have basically ended the Royals’ chances then and there.
https://www.mlb.com/video/escobar-steals-second-base/c-36714545
But he was not caught. Jon Lester had thrown nearly 100 pitches, he was exhausted. And catcher Derek Norris is not a great defender. Escobar was safe and in scoring position.
In the stands, spectator Chris Kamler was ecstatic. “It’s time to run on Lester!” he howled to his companion, Rany Jayazerli (who would write up this incident), then pointed at his temple. “Get in their domes!” Of course, Kamler was certifiably insane (and possibly extremely drunk by this point), but there was something to be said for pressing the Royals’ speed advantage: Put the ball in play. Get on base. Run like hell.
Escobar’s steal loomed large, though, as Nori Aoki grounded sharply to second. If Esky had been on first, it would have been a double play, two outs. But he was not, and he was safe at third with only one out and Lorenzo Cain up to bat. And then…Cain came through, singling up the middle and scoring Escobar.
Throughout Kauffman stadium, there rippled an emotion that hadn’t been felt in Kansas City since the Reagan administration: hope.
Lester stayed on to face Hosmer, but his exhaustion and control betrayed him – he walked the first baseman. The Royals were at first and second, with only one out, and one run in. At last, Lester gave way to relief pitcher Luke Gregerson. His night was done. It was up to Gregorson to put out the fire and save the game for the A’s.
The hitter who Gregerson would face had been waiting for a moment like this, on a night like this, in this ballpark, for 10 years. The man who represented the tying run was Billy Ray Butler, the longest-tenured Royal. The stocky DH tended either to hit home runs or to ground into double plays, so either he would tie the game in a single blow, or end the rally and snuff out the Royals’ hopes. Eden or agony on one swing of the bat – this is what makes baseball a great sport.
Butler did not ground out, nor did he tie the game, but he did what – at his peak – he did as well as anyone: he stayed inside the pitch and took it the other way for an opposite field single. Lorenzo Cain scored, Eric Hosmer scrambled to third base, and the crowd…well, the crowd had never really been out of the game. Even down four runs with six outs to go, the stadium was still packed. But we hadn’t been particularly loud before the inning started. The volume started to build with the rally, and when Butler singled it hit a crescendo that was deafening. This was a ballgame again. This was definitely a ballgame.
He had barely touched the bag when Terrance Gore, who has a legitimate case to be called The Fastest Basestealer Ever, bounded out of the dugout to replace him. And suddenly, just like that, Terrance Gore was the tying run.
If you want to pinpoint the exact moment when 40,000-plus Royals fans at Kauffman Stadium all started to think, holy crap, we might actually pull this off, this is your moment. The Royals could tie the game without even the benefit of a hit. All Gore had to do was steal second base – and everyone in the ballpark knew that was what he was going to try to pull off. What we didn’t know was just how frickin’ easy he would make it look. I mean, we knew he was fast. We knew that he was almost impossible to throw out* even when the other team knew he was running.
But his stolen base still took our breath away. He took off on the very first pitch, and despite Derek Norris’ throw being right on the money, Gore was on the base before the ball hit Lowrie’s glove. It was breathtaking. It was like watching the unveiling of the B-2 Bomber: this mythical weapon that no one had ever seen before, that some doubted could even exist, and that only your side had. Put the ball in play. Get on base. Run. Like. Hell.
The panic was mounting in the A’s dugout as the impossible, improbable rally continued. Facing Alex Gordon, with the tying run on base behind him, the Fastest Man in Baseball, Gregerson floundered – and threw a pitch that dove into the dirt and skipped past Derek Norris. Norris scrambled after the ball, seized it, and whirled to throw to Gregerson, who had dashed for home as soon as he saw the wild pitch, all while Eric Hosmer came charging down the baseline. Hosmer slid home – safe. It was 7-6, Oakland, and the tying run was at third base.
The noise in Kauffman was deafening. At this point, the crowd had begun to believe: it was destiny. The Royals were not the Chiefs. This would not be a one-and-done playoff appearance. In the stands Seth Atkins allowed hope to reappear. “Maybe they do have a chance,” he told himself. Silent in the back rows of the upper deck since Moss’ homer in the sixth, Kent Swanson perked up when his friend received a text message at the top of the eighth inning. Two fans had vacated their seats closer to the third-base line. The duo navigated closer to the action as the comeback began. The shock lifted for Abby Elmer around the same time. Her optimism returned. She wondered if it was foolish to feel that way. But perhaps that was a good thing.
“I remember reading people saying that the Royals didn’t know that game was over, that they were supposed to lose it,” she said. “I feel like the fans were like that, too. They were like, ‘You know what? I’m over it. I’m going to be insanely loud. We’re going to win.’ Meanwhile, Taylor Fritz and his dad arrived at the bar and took a seat. They were still in their Royals gear, and set their tickets down on the bar. The bartender glanced at the tickets, then up at the two men. “Y’all were at the baseball game?” They nodded. “You left?” Nod. “Y’all are fuckin’ idiots.” He jerked his head at the TV behind him, showing the game.
But with Gore at third, the Royals faltered. Gregerson walked Gordon (who stole second, the Royals’ 4th stolen base of the inning- Escobar, Cain, and Gore had all stolen second), but steadied himself and struck out the young catcher Salvador Perez on 3 pitches and second baseman Omar Infante on four. The Royals had slayed Lester and trimmed the deficit to just one run. But they also squandered an opening. The tying run was 90 feet away with only one out, and they came up empty. Winter was not far away.
*The bullshit in the 7th inning at Houston the next year doesn’t count. He was safe.
Gwangju Dreaming 