Happy 4+1 Day

Ask Dodger fans - before Sept. 18, 2006 what the greatest moment in Los Angeles Dodger history was and like a tribe of talking blue cockateels they'd answer with Kirk Gibson's game-winning homer in game one of the 1988 World Series.

Hard to argue with that choice.

I remember sitting in my living room - a smooth baby-butt faced kid of 16 - jumping up and down, exchanging high fives and hugs with the ol' man. We watched as Gibby pumped his fist rounding second and then delivered a high five to third base coach Joey Amalfitano that should have dislodged the limb from the socket and sent it halfway to Pasadena. Our television screen was a Zenith 20-something inch, with more wood framing the screen than actual TV, but as we watched Gibson reach home he looked 10-feet tall. Paul Bunyan in Dodger blue. David to Dennis Eckersely's Goliath (he became a hall of fame closer a few years ago, Eckersely, not Goliath). And after watching that I knew two things: 1) That was the greatest home run I'd ever seen; 2) The Dodgers would win that World Series.

I was three-quarters right. The Dodgers won that World Series - they're last one during the past 19 years (you guessed it, I still live in the 80s. Didn't you figure that out when I blabbered on about that decades music last week?) - and while I still say that was the greatest home run I had ever seen, but now it comes with a caveat: The game I watched one year ago today could be labeled 1a in a home run ranking system.

The Dodgers and Padres were trading first place like renaissance fish merchants for the better part of six weeks. On the season, the Pads had had the Blue's number. I feared this series. It gave me heartburn, diarrhea and jock itch before it even started. Through Sunday, the Dodgers were 1-2, and needed a win Monday night more than a porn star needs a seven-foot tongue.

Brad Penny started the game against designated Dodger hemorroid Jake Peavy, so my hopes were about as high as a high schooler smoking grass - Bermuda grass. I watched as the Pads put four on the board in the first inning and when Wife entered the baseball sanctuary and midget porn theatre - our office - I told her she may want to cue up a Monk or Rescue Me or the documentary on Furries (you haven't lived until you spanked Bugs Bunny's ass and puff tail while doing it doggie-style), I had a feeling this was going to be a long night for the Dodgers.

Then they got one back in the bottom of the inning. They scored one more in the second to make it 4-2. And then, in the third, the Big Blue Wrecking Crew tied the game with an improbable dinger from Rafeal Furcal, the pint-sized $15 million shortstop, and a run scoring double by professional Christian liar J.D. Drew. I told Wife to back down from early departure threat level Red, so she sulked back into the office just so she could be near my wonderful, awe-inspiring presence that radiates from my soul as I watch a Dodger game. I'm as pleasant as a spring time breeze when I'm really focused on a game.

My plan that night was to write bit while the game was running. But that plan faded into oblivion as I found myself riveted to the screen. I gave up by the fifth and made the video screen a size bigger and sat back to watch what was becoming a whale of a ball game.

After they tied the game, both teams stood in the center of the ring and played patty cake, unable to push the momentum one way or the other, until the eighth. That's when all hell broke loose, but more on that later.

Finally, the Pads were able to break their cherry again and pumped two runs across against Jonathan Broxton, a man the size of Georgia who likely could eat Georgia (dude runs 290 pounds - at least that's what the media guide says). Knowing how these things end for the Dodgers, I started looking for other scores around the league hoping other wild card contenders had lost, so the Dodgers wouldn't lose any ground in the playoff chase. But, because baseball is a crazy bastard that keeps you on your toes with every pitch, the Dodgers cut back into the 2-run lead, cutting it to 6-5.

There was still life left in the Blue Crew. Wife, however, had enough of my wonderful personality and called it a night, leaving me to the glow of the computer screen and the lone light shining against the wall on my desk. I told her I'd be in soon, and believed it.

The Dodger closer came in to keep the game close in the ninth. He's Japanese, and I'm sure when manager Grady Little told him to keep them within striking distance, the words Takashi Saito heard were "spot 'em a 4-run lead." One of the best Dodger pitchers that season was tattooed in the ninth more than a prison lifer, and the team was the prison bitch to the Padres' bull queer.

9-5, bottom of the ninth. At least I can crash in about 10 minutes, I thought. But remember, all hell was about to break loose.

Jeff Kent led the inning off. On Jeff Adkins second pitch (thank you Bruce Bochy for not calling in future hall of famer Trever Hoffman to pitch - stroke of genius Mr. Mustache) Kent drilled the offering over the center field wall. 9-6. The gates to hell were open.

"Way to go Kent. Hit a home run now, you piss ant!"

J.D. Drew came up next, and took Adkins fourth serving deep (the ball could have qualified as a long distance airliner as far as it went) into the right field bleachers. 9-7.

"That's interesting."

Then, the Padres brought in Hoffman, and I'll admit this time it felt different.

Earlier in the season, the Dodgers had a five-run lead going into the ninth inning against the Padres. Unfathomably, they blew the lead in the ninth, and lost the game in the tenth. It was April 30, but it felt like Sept. 30. Those kinds of losses haunt you for a season. Maybe tonight the Dodgers would get some pay back, I thought.

Dodger catcher Russell Martin - man crush alert - took Hoffman's first pitch, a fastball just over the left field wall (you couldn't fit a pubic hair between the ball and the wall). 9-8!

I pushed my chair back and jumped out of it like something just bit my sack. This couldn't be happening, I thought. They have a shot! Christ, they have a shot. In a moment of foreshadowing, I shut the office door so I wouldn't wake Wife with screaming if the game prompted me to do so.

It would.

Marlon Anderson, who homered earlier in the game and was already 4-for-4, took the first pitch he saw deep into an ecstatic left field pavilion. I jumped from my chair again and screamed silently - remember Wife asleep, would be none too happy if she woke to a hysteric husband - stomping around the room like a wild-eyed mosher. 9-9! Back-to-Back-to-Back-to-Back homers to tie the game. In the history of baseball, this was the fourth time that feat had been matched, and the first time it was done in the ninth to tie the game.

The next batter hit a shot that was caught on the warning track, but when I saw it leave the bat I thought it was gone too. The next hitter popped out (wimp), and the final hitter of the inning - Furcal - drove a pitch to the right field wall. The outfielder leaned against the wall to make the catch, it was that close from going out and winning it.

The best Dodger pitchers out of the game now, they leaned on a journeyman named Aaron Sele. It wasn't the best option, but at that point the Dodgers had to take what they got. The first hitter lined out, but then Brian Giles followed it up with a double. The Dodgers walked Adrian Gonzalez to get a force out at any base. I was worried. I didn't want them to blow this game that they fought three times to get back into, that's not how the script was written, I remember telling my computer screen.

The next hitter lined out, and I breathed a little easier. Then Josh Bard - friggin' Bard - singled to right to score Giles. 10-9. Ugh!

Sele retired the next hitter, but the damage was done. The Padres bullpen doesn't give up that many leads, and I thought the Dodgers had used up all nine lives in this game.

Rudy Seanez came in to pitch for the Pads. Thankfully, they used all their best pitchers earlier, too. Slap hitting Kenny Lofton led the inning off with a walk. Bringing up Nomar Garciappara. His quad muscle was barely hanging to the bone. He hit a double earlier in the game and I thought he'd have to pogo on the other leg just to get to second.

It was a five pitch at bat. But if you asked me today I would have said it was on the first pitch. Funny how memories get clouded over time. One-legged, like a certain hitter some 18 years earlier, swung and...

..."A high fly ball to left field - it is a-way out and gone! The Dodgers win it, 11-10! Ha ha ha - unbelievable!" - Vin Scully.

I ran around the office as if I just hit the homer. I couldn't believe it. "Oh my God! Oh my God!" was all I could get out of my pie hole. My heart was racing, and the fatigue I felt a half hour before was gone. I ran from the office into the kitchen and clicked on ESPN to watch the highlights. There's nothing better than watching highlights of your team after a monster win, and I had to see it again to make sure it wasn't a dream.

I was too amped up for bed, too. I knew that. I'd just sit there with this goofy smile on my face as if I was the cat who ate the canary, and the fish. The only thing I could do was maybe kick back and read until I calmed down. I took a shot of whiskey to ease the adrenaline and read for an hour, despite having to wake up for work in four hours.

When I finally crept into bed, Wife woke and asked how the game was. I talked in a blur and gave her the Cliff Note version. I think I mentioned four straight home runs and Nomar winning it in the 10th, but it could have been in Portuguese for all I knew. Her response: That's nice. Then, she rolled over and fell back asleep.

That was a year ago today. And, as I type this, I'm listening to the same game. In a season that has been so frustrating, I took Wife's advice and listened to a game that would make me happy. Hopefully that will put me in the right frame of mind for when I turn on the Dodger-Rockies game a little while later.