| | ATLANTA -- They walked around the clubhouse, staggered,
having trouble believing it really was over.
John Franco's eyes were red. Turk Wendell's were the same.
|  | | Rey Ordonez, Edgardo Alfonzo and Melvin Mora, left to right, sit dejectedly in the Mets' dugout after losing Game 6. |
When Kenny Rogers walked over to his locker, Wendell gave him a
big bear hug.
"Everything you've done in the past, they'll forget about and
remember this," Rogers said Tuesday night after he walked in the
winning run in the 11th inning, giving the Atlanta Braves an
unforgettable 10-9 victory over the New York Mets and a 4-2 victory in the
National League Championship Series.
"That," said Rogers, who once pitched a perfect game, "is just
the way it is."
Like vampires, these New York Mets refused to die, bouncing back
again and again after hope had all but vanished.
Starter Al Leiter had nothing left Tuesday night, allowing the first five batters he faced to score, and still the Mets came back from a
5-0 deficit.
"It's so typical of what's gone on," Leiter said. "I thought
for sure we would win this."
New York tied the score with three runs in the sixth and four
more in the seventh, took an 8-7 lead on Melvin Mora's RBI single
in the eighth and a 9-8 lead on Todd Pratt's sacrifice fly in the
10th.
But Franco blew it by allowing Brian Hunter's RBI single in the
bottom of the eighth. And Armando Benitez blew it again in the
10th, wasting Pratt's sacrifice fly by allowing Ozzie Guillen's
run-scoring single in the bottom half.
But by the time Rogers walked Andruw Jones on a 3-2 pitch with
the bases loaded, the Mets had made their mark.
"I'm a big boy," Rogers said. "I can handle it. God thinks I
can handle a lot. He can lay off me now."
This team will be remembered not for failing to become the first
team to overcome a 3-0 postseason deficit, but for its spellbinding
twists and turns, the collapses and comebacks.
The Mets had stirred so much hope with their amazin' turnaround
on the season's final weekend, their tiebreaker playoff win at
Cincinnati, their upset first-round victory over Arizona, with
Pratt circling the bases with only the fourth homer that ended a
postseason series.
Then came that 15-inning win Sunday on Robin Ventura's
grand-slam-turned-single, a game that forever will be remembered
among baseball's best.
"I think every guy in this room should be proud of the way we
handled ourselves," Franco said. "We're champions in our own
hearts."
In 25 pitches by Al Leiter, the Mets' hopes all threatened to come undone. For
just the second time in 210 career starts, regular and postseason
combined, he failed to get a single out. He called it the "poorest
start of my career."
But then the Mets, trying to create the first Subway Series
since 1956, mounted their most spectacular rise from the dead,
leaving the shocked Braves wondering what went wrong.
After five innings of slumber, Mike Piazza's sacrifice fly and
Darryl Hamilton's two-run single pulled New York to within 5-3 in the
sixth inning.
Then, after Jose Hernandez's two-run single off Dennis Cook in
the bottom half made it 7-3, the Mets pulled even against John
Smoltz on Rickey Henderson's RBI double, John Olerud's run-scoring
single and Piazza's two-run homer, just his fourth hit in 23
at-bats in the series.
Benny Agbayani then singled and scored go-ahead runs in the eighth
and 10th. Pratt hit a go-ahead sacrifice fly. Mora singled in both
innings and threw out Ryan Klesko at third base in the 10th,
extending the Mets' life for one more inning.
But it wasn't enough because Gerald Williams doubled leading off the
11th, advanced on Bret Boone's sacrifice and, after two intentional
walks, Rogers walked home the winning run.
The Mets walked off the field for the last time -- finally --
slowly, hanging their heads.
No one could kill them. In the end, they killed themselves.
| |
ALSO SEE
Mets vs. Braves series page
Dramatic victory sends Braves to World Series
Braves pushed to the limit, but come away victorious
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