'What A Team, What a Ride, the Cardinals are World Champs in 2011'

It usually takes a lot for a St. Louisan to throw a Budweiser, but St. Louis Cardinals hometown hero David Freese certainly had the beer – not to mention seat cushions, jackets and triumphant fists – flying through the air with his heroics 15 years ago this week.

And 15 years ago today, Freese and the comeback Cardinals were crowned World Series champions for the 11th time in franchise history.

“What a team, what a ride, the Cardinals are World Champs in 2011,” Fox Sports play-by-play announced Joe Buck – a person with deep St. Louis ties – told the audience upon Josh Hamilton flying out to left to Allen Craig.

Freese, the native of nearby Wildwood, Mo., and Lafayette High School who was living out his dreams of playing in a World Series at Busch Stadium, came to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 6 of the 2011 World Series. The Cardinals were trailing by two runs at the time, and the Texas Rangers were not only one out away, but one strike away from that franchise’s first World Series crown on a chilly October night in St. Louis.    

An excellent opposite-field hitter – see: his home run in the NLCS to push the Cards past the Brewers – Freese drilled a pitch from Neftali Feliz to the wall in right field where Nelson Cruz pulled up short and allowed the baseball to carom back toward the infield. For years, Rangers fans argued that manager Ron Washington figuratively dropped the ball by not replacing the defensively challenged Cruz in right field before the ninth inning.

After Albert Pujols and Lance Berkman scored to tie the game and Freese had belly-flopped into third base, Busch Stadium throbbed with raw emotion, Budweiser beers, jackets, cushions and anything within reach flew through the air as the Cardinals breathed new life in the series.

“Into right and well-hit,” Buck told the national television audience, “Back at the wall and it’s off the wall. One run scores, here comes Berkman, Freese has tied it, 7-7! Unbelievable.”

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An inning later, following a majestic two-run homer by Josh Hamilton, a scene similar to the one in the ninth played out with Berkman delivering a two-strike, two-run single. After the Cardinals had tempted fate again by getting down to their final strike a second time and still finding a way to tie the game, Fox Sports announcer Joe Buck summed up the grit of the Cards by saying, “They … just … won’t … go … away!”

In the 11th inning, Freese sent the liquids and seat cushions flying through the air again with a solo shot that sailed over the wall in center field and onto a grassy berm that would later be renamed, “Freese’s Landing.”

Buck, who had cut his teeth in broadcasting in St. Louis while working alongside of his Hall of Fame father, Jack Buck, capped the joyous moment with an utterance that was nod to his famous father.

“Freese hits it in the air to center … we will see you … tomorrow night!” Joe said, referring to the next night’s Game 7 – the same thing Jack said in 1991 when Kirby Puckett homered to send the Minnesota Twins to a Game 7 against the Atlanta Braves.

Like the Twins, the Cardinals rode the momentum from the thrilling Game 6 victory into Game 7 where they won 6-2 for the World Series crown. Even though the Cardinals and ace starter Chris Carpenter trailed 2-0 in that Game 7, there was an invincibility in the air that nothing was stopping a Cardinals team that refused to die a night earlier and almost certainly would find a way to win again.

Freese’s two-strike, two-out triple in the bottom of the ninth of a World Series elimination game is arguably the biggest hit in Cardinals’ history – so much so that it made St. Louisans fling their Budweisers into the air for one night.