Pete Alonso hit a dramatic home run for a Mets win that clinched the National League Wild Card Series on this night in Milwaukee. It came right on the 73rd anniversary of Bobby Thomson's famous "Shot Heard 'Round the World." Alonso and Thomson are the only players in major league history to hit go-ahead homers with their teams trailing in the ninth inning of a winner-take-all game of a playoff series. In Thomson's case, the series in 1951 was a first place tie-breaker and officially an extension of the regular season. Pete's clutch blast was the first such homer to come in the post-season.
A lifeless performance for 8 innings until an all-time rally in the 9th.
Was at The Playwright Pub on 35th street with over a hundred other die-hards who came to watch the do-or-die game. The 7-Line Army hosted the event and posted that there would be free beer for an hour before first pitch (sold).
Quintana left it all on the field for 6 scoreless innings but the Mets made the baby faced Tobias Myers look like a Cy-Young candidate. When the Brewers inexplicably took him out after 5 innings, there was great buzz in the bar, thinking we would now finally come alive against their bullpen. They went 1-2-3 in the 6th, and 1-2-3 in the 7th. Two body blows.
And then in the 7th, the Brewers pinch hit for Met killer Rhys Hoskins with the immortal Jake Bauers, and Bauers launched one over the wall in deep right to put the Brewers on the board. Sal Frelick jumped on the very next pitch and hit one out of sight to double the lead. I got up from the now stunned silent bar and yelled profanities outside alongside others who couldn't bear to watch the Mets break our hearts again. In our misery, the small group outside shared a smoke and headed back in, because it's baseball and we had 6 outs to cling to.
They went 1-2-3 in 8th, and the mood in the bar was getting dark. How did they do this to us AGAIN?
But then Lindor came up and worked a brilliant walk, followed by a Vientos strikeout. Nimmo refused to go quietly and singled to put runners on the corners and the camera panned to Alonso. Rally caps on, we all knew this could be his last at-bat as Met, but that his struggles this year could be forgiven with one swing. And then he swung.
Beer flew everywhere and the roar was deafening. People were crying, hugging, kissing, screaming; its was pure pandemonium. HE DID IT! HE DID IT! as the great Howie Rose would go on to say in his now-famous call. He nailed that call.
They tacked on another and Lindor got the double play in the bottom of the 9th to end it, and we partied at the Playwright until the early hours of what was now a Friday morning.
A moment I'll never forget until my dying day. Special thanks to the gentlemen outside on the street who talked us all off the ledge in the 7th and provided the smoke.
