Time lends perspective to Pedroza's Home Run

by Jim Tocco

It's been more than four months now since Sergio Pedroza's dramatic home run won the Montgomery Biscuits the 2007 Southern League championship.

For me, that Sunday night at Joe W. Davis Stadium in Huntsville stands out as one of the most vivid memories in my broadcasting career and in my life as a baseball fan. But sometimes the march of time turns even the brightest memories into pale tableaux. Sometimes, months later, you'll remember the names and some of the numbers, but the context fades.

Not in this case.

When Pedroza lined that ball to left field, a go-ahead and eventual game-winning home run was the last thing I was prepared for. First off, I didn't think the ball was going to clear the fence. Secondly, as much as I tried not to, I'd been silently thinking for several minutes of the words I was going to use to present the Huntsville Stars as Southern League champions and accurately convey the disappointment of losing the championship series. Lastly, this sort of thing just didn't happen.

So when the ball did leave the park and the Biscuits raised the trophy, I was simply not prepared to lend the situation any kind of perspective. I screamed and yelled and even jumped up and down in the press box. But I could not offer fans anything apart from my excitement. I was not prepared to match any words with the import of what had just happened. Would any words have sufficed even if I had been prepared?

If you're paying attention, though, perspective is the one thing that grows sharper with time. And in the 19 weeks since that day, I've only grown more acutely aware of what that home run meant, in terms of its importance to the young men on that baseball field, the 1,431 fans in the stands, the tens of thousands of fans back home, and even to baseball history.

I remember my mood that night going from confident, to shattered, to serene, to delerious. With a timeline of that night, I present my second attempt, all these days later, to memorialize that moment.

6:06 p.m., CDT -- Game Five of the Southern League Championship Series begins, on a beautiful night in Huntsville. It's 80 degrees with a slight breeze.

I remember strolling out of my hotel room early that morning to head to the gas station for a snack (a daily ritual when I'm on the road). I was thinking, sadly but placidly, that tonight would be the last day of summer. Whether the Biscuits won or lost that evening, my life was going to be vastly different tomorrow, for it would be the offseason. No more warm summer days of travel and baseball. No more looking out at an indigo evening sky as twilight falls.

There are patches during the sometimes grueling summer, when you are in the midst of an eight-hour, all-night bus ride, when you do look forward to the offseason. But not on the season's last day. On that day, you're introspective. And if you're like me, and baseball is inside of you, you wish it was still June. Ask me at the end of my life what I'd trade for one more day of 80 degree weather, strolling out of my hotel room to cross a busy road and get a bag of Baked Lay's and a Vault Zero at a dirty gas station. It seems pedestrian, but there's probably nothing I wouldn't give.

But here we were, on the final day of summer, when the bats and balls are put away, and we prepare ourselves for the cold, remarkably baseball-free months to come.

That may be what's on my mind, but not the players'. They've got a pretty important game to play tonight. For some, the most important in their lives to this point.

Tonight, the Biscuits pit ground-balling righty Richard De Los Santos against rubber-armed Huntsville lefty Steve Hammond. Montgomery is still recovering from a 4-1, series-evening loss the previous night. Lindsay Gulin, an even softer-tossing lefty, had arced the ball through the strike zone for eight innings. In Hammond, the Biscuits see another Gulin, and they want retribution.

6:11 -- Reid Brignac has smacked a double to center field and stands on second base as Chris Nowak approaches the plate. Nowak has been unbelievable during the championship series. He has carried the Biscuits offensively, homering in each of the first three games of the series.

The same thing happened with designated hitter Michael Coleman in the 2006 SLCS. Coleman became impossible to retire, dominating the physical and mental aspects of the game.

I remember in early September asking Chris in an interview which of his teammates might step up in these do-or-die games at the end of the season. I should have seen it coming. Nowak was the man of the moment. You knew it when he stepped in the batter's box.

So it's not surprising when Nowak lashes a shot just fair over third base and into the left field corner, scoring Brignac. It's a huge start, and there is cause for excitement. The Biscuits have been 50-20 when they score first, and it looks like they're going to jump on Hammond. It's a 1-0 lead.

6:13 -- The top of the first inning ends, and something feels uneasy about the 1-0 lead. If you look at baseball data, a 1-0 lead by the visiting team in the middle of the first inning generally does nothing more than erase a homefield advantage. Visiting teams with such a lead can expect to win exactly 50% of the time. But it goes deeper than statistics.

For starters, the Biscuits don't like coming to play here in Huntsville and never have. The stands are usually empty, with the voices of a few boistrous, rude fans echoing off the stadium's big, concrete walls. The accommodations in the clubhouse are not what the Biscuits' players are used to. And earlier in the season, the Stars had thrashed them here.

The Biscuits had had some good momentum entering Huntsville on May 28. They were in second place, with fading division leader Mississippi in their sights. But the Stars beat -- make that destroyed -- Montgomery in four out of five games at Joe W. Davis Stadium, stealing away their momentum and their chance at success in the season's first half. The Stars, still a little bitter over the Biscuits' 2006 championship series win, had made their case convincingly. There was a 12-3 beating, then a 19-4 shellacking, the Biscuits' second-worst loss ever. And then there was a 4-0 fifth-inning lead that dissolved into an 11-4 loss. Overall, the Stars outscored Montgomery 42-16 during the series.

7:18 - It's the fifth inning, and Fernando Perez goes back on a Mickey Brantley fly ball to make the final out of the inning. It's a medium deep fly ball and it forces him to run to his right, but by the time he reaches up, he's cruising and his teammates are thinking about how nice it will be to head back to the dugout with the 1-0 lead after five innings.

But Perez, one of the league's finest defensive outfielders, drops the ball. By the time the ball is back in the infield, two Stars have scored and Brantley is standing on third. The Biscuits trail for the first time in the game, 2-1.

"...The worst moment of my life," Perez would later call it. "If Sergio Pedroza hadn't hit that home run to win the deciding Game 5, we would have lost the game most visibly on account of an error I made. I would have had a bad season, and an offseason that would have never sat right on account of one lapse, a few seconds in a six-month season."

I knew Fernando, and I knew how awful he must already be feeling. What's more, I knew De Los Santos, one of the truly good guys on the team. Would he be able to keep it together long enough to give Montgomery an opportunity to win?

I've been sick with bronchitis all week, and I'm on antibiotics and a shot of cortisone to stop the swelling in my throat. I'm trying to mask my gravely voice and only hack up during commerical breaks. But now I've gotten sick to my stomach, too.

7:21 -- Huntsville shortstop Alcides Escobar rolls a soft tapper to the left side of the infield and beats Reid Brignac's throw to first base. Brantley scores and makes it 3-1, Stars.

It's the kind of hit that keeps a pitcher awake at night, and it had followed a two-out error by his outifeld; another constant worry for a pitcher. And this was not the first rodeo for Richard De Los Santos. Almost exactly a year earlier, he had been on the hill in the deciding Game 5 of the California League's championship series. In that game, he had surrendered a two-out single, followed by an RBI double, which provided the Inland Empire 66'ers just enough to beat his Visalia Oaks. No doubt that those haunting memories started coming back.

By the numbers, with those two batters, the Biscuits' chances of winning the game slip from 60% to 18%.

7:55 -- These words come in via e-mail from Mike Watson, written years earlier by ABBA but now taking on a completely different meaning:

There was something in the air that night
The Stars were bright, Fernando.

Though I never thought that we could lose,
There's no regret
If I had to do the same again,
I would my friend, Fernando.

I'm struck by how appropriate it is, and I'm empathizing with Perez right now.

8:02 -- Steve Hammond ends his seven-inning start with a bang. Since that first-inning double by Nowak, no Biscuit has made it past first base. After he allowed a leadoff single this inning by Nowak, Hammond strikes out John Jaso, Gaby Martinez and Pedroza in order to send it to the stretch.

The final batter Hammond faces typifies the frustration that the Biscuits have felt these past two nights against these soft-tossing lefties. Pedroza srikes out and loses the bat at the same time, with the bat ending up near second base and his fanny ending up in the dugout.

It's about this time that I imagine Stars staffers are coordinating the hanging of plastic tarps and the delivery of champagne to the Stars' locker room. The Biscuits are 8-50 when trailing after seven innings.

8:21 -- The Biscuits have been unable to score against some more soft tossers, Robert Hinton and Sam Narron. It's still a 3-1 Stars lead and we're back for the bottom of the eighth. Brian Henderson is on the mound, facing the meat of the order.

It strikes me now exactly how improbable a comeback will be. In the Biscuits' first three seasons, they had won exactly one game that they trailed after eight innings. It has happened three times this season, but they'd still never overcome a two-run lead in the final inning. What's more, including the postseason, the Stars are 66-0 when leading after eight innings. They've also got ace closer Luis Pena, a fire-balling righty who had some clutch saves down the stretch.

It occurs to me, though, as we begin this half of the eighth inning, how there could be no more appropriate pitcher on the mound for Montgomery than Henderson. He'd been a Biscuit for each of the team's four seasons. He'd been on the mound a year before, when the Biscuits won their first title. He'd always been the bedrock of the Biscuits' 'pen.

8:22 -- My radio partner, Jesse Goldberg-Strassler, and I are tossing around the names of some Stars players, wondering on the air who among them should be considered for series MVP. As we do this, Henderson quietly mows down the meat of the Stars order in succession, striking out the last two. This is the manner in which Henderson has carried out his entire Biscuits' career. He's not flashy or striking, but he is quiet and solid.

8:25 -- That whole "last-day-of-summer" thing is hitting me hard, and I mention that it will likely be the last time that each Star bats in 2007. Imagine having a job that you like so much that every time you finish another year of doing it, you silently hope that it won't be your last. Some players know that they won't bat again until the spring of 2008. Others, I'm sure, fear that they'll never bat professionally again.

8:25 -- I note, for the first time, that Luis Pena is warming up in the Stars' bullpen. Nine days earlier, Pena closed out a combined no-hitter for the Stars during their divisional series win against the Tennessee Smokies. There's been a recent article in the Huntsville Times in which Pena says he lives for clutch saves. There's reason to believe it, since he's so good at converting his opportunities.

8:28 -- Henderson finishes dispatching the Stars, striking out Steve Sollman. He has struck out two right handers, which is significant because he is usually a left-handed specialist. Yet again, he's made the most under-appreciated contribution to what would become a Biscuits win. Still, the situation is bleak. "Three outs separate the Stars from a Southern League championship," I say. "And three runs separate the Biscuits from the lead."

8:29 -- I pop into Huntsville radio broadcaster Brett Pollock's booth to tell him that Jesse and I have come to a decision: for saving his club in Game Six, Huntsville starter Lindsay Gulin should be series MVP. I wonder if he, too, is planning the words to present the Huntsville Stars as Southern League champions.

8:30 -- We're back for the ninth inning, and though hope springs eternal, there's only a shred left for the Biscuits fans sitting behind the first base dugout and for Jesse and me in the booth.

It's almost poetic justice, I'm thinking. I've been lucky enough to get two minor league championship rings (the Biscuits in '06 and the Lansing Lugnuts in '03), and both were won from opposing manager Don Money. And there he was again, standing nervously in the dugout, near the end of the baseball season in which he won Manager of the Year honors and had his father die.

("It wasn't meant to be," he'd say later. It's a tough way to lose it. Whoo. Goodness, tough way to lose it.")

Money had been in four chanpionship series and lost them all. I'm thinking: he deserves this championship. Plus, the Biscuits had such an unbelievable, exciting run to the 2006 championship win over the Stars that Huntsville's team almost deserves to win this one as retribution. It would almost feel like we're the Evil Empire if we win this now.

In any case, it isn't a matter anymore of whom deserves what. The decision is nearly foregone. Ten minutes from now, I'll walk back into Brett Pollock's booth and congratulate him on being with the league champions. In half an hour, I'll walk down to both clubhouses and congratulate them on a great season. And tomorrow morning, it will be Autumn.

"If the Biscuits cannot score two in the ninth inning, then we've come to the end of the road," I say. Then we introduce Luis Pena.

8:31 -- Chris Nowak strolls into the batter's box. The Biscuits have four hits tonight, and Nowak has three of them. With his first pitch, Pena misses up and in. He looks nervous. He has reason to be. Not only is Nowak the hottest hitter on the planet, but the Biscuits are like like a school of piranhas smelling blood in the water. They've been waiting for the moment that the soft-tossers would leave the mound and they'd have some firm pitches to hit.

8:32 - To gasps from the crowd of 1,431, Nowak lashes a single through the left side of the infield. He's made solid contact again, taking his day to 4-for-4. He stands at first base for the Biscuits' clutch hitter of the year, John Jaso.

8:33 - Jaso steps in. His last time at the plate, he launched a ball roughly 500 feet -- and just foul -- in a bid to tie the game. This time he lines a hard shot to right and lumbering right fielder Brendan Katin catches it with a diving grab. Pena hasn't fooled either of the Biscuits' first two hitters, but you can sense his relief and he looks to be settling down.

8:35 -- Gaby Martinez lines a hard shot into the gap in left center. This is Gaby's third season with the Biscuits, and we know as soon as the ball leaves his bat: he's not getting past first base on this one. Martinez runs like he has a piano strapped to his back. He rounds first but doesn't tempt fate by trying for second. This is important because, although it puts the tying runs on base, it leaves a double play possibility intact. If Pedroza hits a ground ball, the game could be over.

8:36 -- With Pedroza coming up, Patrick Cottrell is on deck. "The Biscuits could potentially call upon Patrick Breen to hit for Pat Cottrell," I say. "That would face up a lefty against the right hander Pena." I'm too busy saying this and staring at my scorecard to notice, but Patrick Breen is already in the game. He's replaced Martinez at first base as a pinch runner. And yet, I continue:

"You heard Billy Gardner say it in the pregame show, that Breen would be the first guy off that bench if the Biscuits needed a big home run."

I pause two seconds and then say, presciently, "Here they need a big home run."

"Pedroza is 0-for-3 tonight. He swings and lines it to left and deep. Backing up is Brantley! On the run! It is OUTTA HEEEEERE! A three-run home run for Sergio Pedroza to the opposite field, and the Biscuits lead it, 4-3 in the ninth!"

On the "Outta Here," my voice breaks like a 12-year-old's. I'm not being careful to disguise my gravely, heavily laryngeal voice anymore. I'm just screaming.

Pedroza hadn't made it to Double-A until playoff time. He homered in his first Biscuits at-bat, a two-run shot in Mississippi during the Divisional Series. He's about as California calm as they come. And even as he rounds the bases, you can see he's about the only one in the stadium on an even keel. Fans behind the first base dugout are going crazy. Stars fans, who have been taunting those in blue and gold for innings now, are aghast. To my delight, If you listen to the highlight, you can hear them let out a collective moan.

Left fielder Mickey Brantley and center fielder Steve Moss follow the ball all the way to the wall. At they watch it sail over the wall by 10 feet, Brantley turns away angrily. Moss stops and rests his head against the wall for a brief time, unable to look back at the growing mob at home plate.

Pedroza is abused by his teammates as he touches home.

It was a first-pitch splitter, up and away. Pedroza would later claim that he knew Pena from the Florida State League and that he got the exact pitch he was looking for. It certainly looked like it.

The Biscuits still must be cautious, however. It's only a one-run lead, and these Stars mean business.

8:37 -- Pat Cottrell lines one back up the middle for a single against an unnerved Pena. Corey Thurman is warming up in the bullpen now.

8:38 -- Talk about unnerved. Fernando Perez feels a whole lot better since his error was overcome, but he hasn't looked the same at the plate since that fifth inning.

8:40 -- I notice how awestruck the Hutsville fans look, and I say, "Spectator turns to spectator, and looks nervously at the field." I can only imagine that the players feel the same way. Perez is patient enough to walk.

8:41 -- By now, the plastic and the champagne are being moved from the Stars' clubhouse to the Biscuits' clubhouse. Josh Asanovich spanks one to deep center field but Moss runs it down in front of the warning track. The Biscuits are three outs away from repeating as Southern League champions.

8:42 -- The e-mails begin to roll in. Among the first is from Biscuits owner Tom Dickson, listening in via the Internet in Chicago. I can't tell you how many capital letters or exclamation points I saw in those e-mails.

Typically, the spaces between innings are filled with chatting between Jesse and me. This time, though, we merely look at each other and exchange a nervous, bewildered checkle.

8:44 - "Aunt Jenny, put my spaghetti and meatballs on the stove," I begin. I've started every bottom of the ninth that way for four years when we lead, and I'm not about to change it up. "Hang the plastic. Chill the champagne. The Biscuits are three outs away from going back-to-back as Southern League champions, but it's only a one-run lead. On to protect the lead is Tim Corcoran."

8:45 -- Tim Corcoran is an interesting story. He was waived by the Devil Rays a few days ago. Clearing waivers, he had elected to come back with the Biscuits and play for a championship. He must know that the Rays are not going to ask him to come back during the offseason. But right now, he's the most important person on the baseball field. If he makes three outs, the Biscuits are champions.

"... He's uncertain of what the future holds," I say. "He doesn't know if he'll ever play this game again professionally." Two days earlier, Corcoran told me in an interview that 'playing in the postseason makes you feel young again.'" Especially for Sergio Pedroza, I reflect, who has just fulfilled the dream of every kid who ever picked up a baseball and a bat in his backyard. Jesse adds, "the playoffs may make you feel young again, but it's sure nice to have some experience out on the hill." Experience reigns as Corcoran strikes out AA rookie Mat Gamel.

8:46 -- "The big right-hander Brendan Katin is trying to push the sun back up in the sky and give the Stars one more day of summer," I say. Katin, the league leader in home runs, bounces a curveball past the mound for a single.

8:50 -- Everyone in both dugouts is wearing their ballcaps inside out. This is a carryover from their youngest and most exuberant days of playing baseball. It's called a rally cap, and it's worn by mainly little leaguers and the staunchest and most superstitious fans. But here were dozens of professional players, some millionaires, reduced to that most basic kernel of baseball love from their childhood. I'll never forget the day I saw professional players in both dugouts wearing rally caps.

8:51 -- Huntsville catcher Lou Palmisano walks to put the series winning run on base. Steve Moss steps in. "one way or the other, we could have a Southern League champion with one swing of the bat." We would.

Reid Brignac approaches the mound to talk to Corcoran. While covering his lips with his glove, he says something like, "this guy has been grounding balls to me all series. Keep it low and we'll turn a double play and go home."

8:52 -- With one out, on a 1-1 count, with #11 at the plate and the Biscuits staked to a one-run lead, Steve Moss bounces to Reid Brignac, just like he had prophecied. Brignac steps on second base and fires to first. The ball ends up in the glove of Chris Nowak, and the Biscuits are Southern League champions.

8:54 -- I pop into Brett Pollock's booth again. This time, hushed and sympathetic but my head spinning, I tell him that I think Chris Nowak should be named series MVP. Not much is being said in the press box. I don't know how to feel. I feel like a thief who has gotten away with a great heist.

8:59 - The Biscuits get their trophy. Corcoran is dancing like popular ballpark entertainer Myron Noodleman, much to his team's delight. Months later, Jonathan Papelbon would mimic Corcoran's antics as the Red Sox won the World Series. The champagne is brought to the field because there hasn't been time to fully prepare the clubhouse. Players pop the corks and begin spraying each other right there on the field.

9:00 -- Nowak gets his MVP trophy.

9:01 -- An e-mail comes in telling me of plans to welcome the Biscuits back to town. When the Biscuits finally roll back into town, there will be dozens of fans ready to welcome the Boys of Summer back to Montgomery. People often ask me whether Montgomery held a parade to herald our victorious team, and I explain that would be impossible because the players all head home either the day after the last game or even the night of. I know many players who returned to Montogmery, emptied their lockers, and drove straight through the night until they were home. So this, instead, would be their parade. No ticker tape, no waving from the back seat of a convertible. Just dozens of close Montgomery fans.

The mayor would be there, too, and he would order that the Biscuits' bus be brought back to Montgomery under police escort.

9:46 -- After my postgame show has concluded, I go down to the clubhouse, sealing my cell phone in a plastic bag that I've brought along for the occasion. Just a few days earlier, my cell phone had been rendered useless for two days when it was soaked in the Divisional Series celebration. I'd left it in front of a fan for a full 24 hours to dry out the water, champagne and beer.

The calmest player in the clubhouse is seated at a plastic table, almost unaware of the celebration happening everywhere around him. He's wearing a thousand-yard stare and plowing into a plate of chicken salad. It's Sergio Pedroza.

11:00 -- Jesse and I are headed home now, and suddenly perspective starts to set in. After we stop at a gas station for a granola bar and some chocolate milk, Jesse asks, "how many home runs in baseball history happened in the final inning of the final game of the championship series, taking a team from losing the championship to winning it?"

We toss around the greatest Major League Baseball home runs of all time. Bobby Thomson? Nope, that happened in a one-game playoff in 1951. Joe Carter? No, that was in Game Six of their 1993 series with the Phillies. Bill Mazeroski? No, the teams were tied in 1960 when Mazeroski hit his series-winning home run.

So, we finally came to this: is had never happened in the history of Major League Baseball.

I remember only one home run that could register in the same class. In 1999, Milton Bradley of the Harrisburg Senators hit what many consider to be the "ultimate home run." The Senators trailed the Trenton Thunder by three in the final game of their five-game Eastern League championship series, when Bradley came to the plate with two outs in the ninth inning. The game-winner came with a full count. I can't think of any better situation to dream about as a child in your backyard.

The point is that, as they say, no matter how many times you come to the ballpark, you still have the chance to see something new. As many baseball games as are played each year, big home runs like this simply don't happen often. Four months later, I'm still just beginning to grasp exactly how big. But the fact is that for that one summer day, the impossible became real.

And then, it was Winter.