My Favorite Things

There’s something extra special about a postseason home run: a big blast on the biggest of stages.  Mazeroski and Carter won the World Series with one.  Chambliss, Boone, Ordóñez, Ishikawa and Altuve sent their respective teams to the Fall Classic with one.  Ruth (maybe) called one and Fisk desperately waved one fair.  Gibson produced an unbelievable one, Smith got folks going crazy with one, and Puckett hit one to force a tomorrow night.  Thome and Victorino each produced two with the bases filled up, while Jeter, Rollins and Damon each launched a pair as the very first batter of a contest.  

In all, 3,310 homers have cut through the postseason tension to generate oohs, ahhs, ughs, and – in the case of Gibson, Smith and Puckett – an enduring response from the great Jack Buck.  If we’ve watched and rooted then we’ve been elated and crushed.  And odds are, we’ve curated our own deserted island playlist of those round-trippers we want to relive time and again.  This is mine.

Nearly a year after Reggie Jackson electrified Yankee Stadium with this three-homer effort to power New York’s final push to the 1977 title, George Brett stood inside that same baseball cathedral and stepped to the plate as the very first batter in Game 3 of the ’78 ALCS.   Up to this point, Brett had played in 12 postseason contests (all against the Yankees) and had terrorized New York’s staffs to the tune of a .362/.392/.596 slash line. But not even that splendid accumulation of box scores could properly anticipate what the next would bring.

On the third offering of the afternoon from Catfish Hunter, Brett met the ball with an easygoing response and lifted it all the way to the right field upper deck:  1-0 Royals.  Then, with the score knotted at one in the third, Brett again faced Hunter. Rinse, repeat:  with more of a reach down this time, Brett easily sent one to the right of the 417’ marker in center to give KC the lead.  

Brett led off the inning in the fifth, and again, had seen his team’s lead evaporate.  And again, he responded mightily to a Hunter delivery:  a yank to deliver the ball into the lower right field seats.  “Is it three in a row?  Yes!” asked and exclaimed Keith Jackson.  Yes.

Among the 193 batters in postseason history with at least 150 plate appearances, Brett owns the fourth-highest slugging percentage, at .627.  The Hall of Famer was a playoff pitch destroyer – the author of one of the signature home run performances in the game’s annals and an imprinter on the memory of six-year-old me.  George Brett’s 3 HR-game

In my mind’s eye, Bernie Williams was two different batters.  From the left side, he was more measured, relaxed, easy-going.  “Thanks for the pitch, yes, I can do something with it.”  The right side transformed him, converting some of that casualness into an attacking, ferocious pursuit that could – and did – punish.  Facing lefties, Williams seemed to fill out and grow beyond his 6’2” frame, seemed to know that around any corner, a momentous swing and a drive was his to be had.  In Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS against the Orioles, the mindset and execution was (and is) more captivating than ever.

Three innings after Derek Jeter’s “what just happened” home run tied New York and Baltimore at four apiece, Williams stepped to the dish to open the bottom of the 11th.  Facing southpaw Randy Myers, Williams got the count to 1-1 and then … unleashed.  From the moment ball connected with bat, Bernie knew it:  game over.  Just like that, just as we were settling in after the mid-inning break, Williams crushed it and forever made that right-handed swing an enduring photograph.  Bernie Williams’ Walk-off

For the visual style of it all, nothing tops Jim Edmonds’ swing, follow-through and instant reaction in Game 6 of the 2004 NLCS.  

In Game 5 of the series, the Astros moved one win away from the pennant when second baseman Jeff Kent ripped a three-run, walk-off homer in the ninth.  After an off-day, the scene moved back to St. Louis, where Edmonds and his Cardinals looked to force a Game 7.  Nine innings wouldn’t ultimately be enough, and thanks be for that.  

After Jeff Bagwell tied the game with a two-out single in the ninth, Edmonds met his first chance at immortality in the bottom half of that frame, coming to the dish with two outs and none aboard.  Alas, a 1-2 pitch came in and landed in the catcher’s mitt, rendering Edmonds a strikeout victim.

Redemption arrived three frames later, when the Cardinals’ outfielder faced an 0-1 pitch and began that rapturous three-act response:  swing, follow-through, reaction.  With the slightest lift and putback of his front foot heel, the swing meets a letter-high pitch and then Edmonds curls into his backswing and bat drop while simultaneously lifting his front foot in a little hop and moving fluidly into a double-bent-arm fist pump.  There’s a dance in this blink-of-an-eye moment.  Let’s call it “We are going to Game 7!”  Jim Edmonds’ Game-ender

Brett’s three blasts, the walk-offs from Williams and Edmonds.  Oh joy.  I could watch these again and again and again and again.  But if forced to, I’d trade ‘em all for my favorite ever postseason moment.  

The 1995 Yankees closed out the season on a 22-6 run for a .786 winning percentage that was the best in the Majors for a September/October in seven years and the best for a Yankees squad in that final chunk since the 1952 club played .792 ball.  Not only did this magnificence connect the ’95 Yankees to the magic of 1950s baseball in the Bronx, it vaulted them – and crucially, Don Mattingly – into the playoffs.  For the first time in his 14-year career, the Captain – the face and the heart and the soul of the Pinstripers during their longest postseason drought since they reached their first World Series in 1921 – would be among the select vying for the trophy.  

Still, one had to wonder how much he could contribute at the plate.  The extra-base power from the mid-80s was seemingly gone forever, sapped by wrist and back maladies.  During the ‘90s, the once potent first baseman had averaged 39 extra-base hits a year and slugged .405 (ranking 80th among the 106 players who’d had at least 2,500 plate appearances during that stretch).  What would Don Mattingly be able to do in his first postseason exploration?  

Game 1’s box score offered an inspiring and optimistic response: 2-for-4 with a double and go-ahead RBI single in the sixth.  These were meaningful contributions in a 9-6 victory, and perhaps nearly as meaningful, a tiny sample size of ringing possibility.  Maybe there was something to cull from the repository of back then.

When he walked to the dish in the bottom of the fifth inning the next night, Mattingly had a single and a walk, but hadn’t figured in the scoring of a 2-2 game.  It was a fairly quiet role in the contest – helpful but nothing remarkable.  And then, on a 1-0 pitch from Andy Benes, a lightning bolt emerged from the left side of the box.  Don Mattingly’s Roof Raiser

That swing, that flash of bat through the zone leading to the hard run out of the batter’s box – prelude to Gary Thorne’s perfect “Hang onto the roof!”  We’d have to wait until replays to see Mattingly’s emotional release after rounding first – a moment more than a decade in the making.  In that moment, time existed in layers, where Mattingly in Game 2 of the 1995 ALDS was joined with the Donnie Baseball of the mid-1980s and the broken down version that came after.  All three in one place at the same time to make a playoff home run something bigger and brighter and more everlasting.  

In Game 2 of the 1995 ALDS in the Bronx, I experienced the fireworks of July 4, the hopefulness of New Year’s Eve, the joy of unwrapping a much-longed for gift, the jolt of “Go Crazy Folks” and the elation of “I don’t believe what I just saw!”:  all in a single and singular moment.  There is something extra special about a postseason home run.  

Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.