It is a play that will be talked about for ages, or at least the rest of the 2021 MLB season. For SF Giants fans, today’s conversations will begin with “where were you when Tauchman snagged Pujols walk-off Home run back over the wall for stolen extra innings?”
Albert Pujols, number 5 on the list of most career home runs in major league history with 668, was inches away from making it 669 and extending the Dodgers winning streak over the Giants to five this season.
As a Giants fan I was still mulling over the blown 5-2 lead they gave up just moments earlier in the inning, the 9th inning. Seeing Pujols at the plate, with screaming Dodger home fans cheering him on, I couldn’t help but feel the Giants were about to pay for letting the stinking fodgers back in it to steal the game.
Just as thoughts of defeat materialized I was jolted by a crack of the bat followed by a roaring Dodger stadium. NOooooo!
On a 1-2 count, Pujol’s smashed a pitch high and deep toward the left field wall. Giants out-fielder Mike Tauchman gauged it’s trajectory and began angling back towards the wall, never taking his eyes off the ball.
Tauchman went textbook spiderman with alert coolness, timing his leap perfectly, cleats scaling high up the wall, arm fully extended while trapping Pujol’s missile in the webbing of his glove just as it was about to destroy San Francisco’s hopes of survival.
When Tauchman fell back to earth, landing on his back on the warning track with ball somehow tightly secured, he was human again. For those magical seconds that seemed like ages, he was a gravity-defying super hero with unearthly powers even he couldn’t explain.
He had single-handedly restored faith and confidence to the entire Giants team while at the same time rendering the Dodgers 9th inning threat harmless.
His catch sent the game into extra innings, where the Giants put bat to ball, sending three runners across home plate for what would hold up as a final winning score.
It was a fantastic rival match between two teams with a hate+hate history for one another.
Today is game three of the four game series. I suggest baseball fans tune-in to catch an episode of the series “Spidey’s Web,” featuring Tauchman. Don’t miss the Giants super hero continue his battle againt the evil blue empire, lifting the hopes and hearts of Giants fans everywhere during this unexpectedly, miraculous season so far.
Final (10 innings)
No comments:
Post a Comment