PHOENIX -- Tony Womack has been an All-Star. A stolen-base champ. A struggling defensive second baseman turned right fielder turned shortstop.

	Former playoff goat Tony Womack, who drove in the tying run in the ninth, doesn't have to worry about that moniker anymore.

He knows the despair of being a playoff goat. And now he knows the feeling of being a World Series hero. A Game 7 World Series hero.

In the bottom of the ninth, after Mark Grace singled and Damian Miller reached on Mariano Rivera’s throwing error on a bunt attempt, the Diamondbacks appeared to be mounting a threat against the invincible Rivera.

When Jay Bell bunted into a force play at third base, Arizona still had runners at first and second but now with one out.

Womack stepped in. The leadoff hitter. Brenly hadn’t pinch hit for him all postseason, even though he’s the weakest-hitting regular on the team. He was hitting .226 in the World Series (7-for-31) and just .235 for the entire postseason.

Brenly could have gone to Erubiel Durazo -- like Womack, a left-handed hitter, but a better one who had reached base in half of his 14 plate appearances in the World Series. He could have used Reggie Sanders, who hit 33 home runs during the regular season. He could have pinch hit Greg Colbrunn, but Colbrunn stepped on deck to hit for Craig Counsell.

No, Womack was Brenly’s guy. He had delivered a big hit off Andy Pettitte in the second inning of Game 6. He had delivered the series-winning hit against St. Louis in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 5 in the Division Series.

It would be Womack, who admitted after the game, "It's been and up-and-down season for me," caused in part by his father's death earlier in the year. Midre Cummings jogged out to second base to run for Miller. He was the potential tying run.

With his robotic, icy stare, Rivera worked from the stretch. Fastball inside for ball one. Cutter that sailed high for ball two. The strike-throwing machine was behind in the count. Womack took a 93-mph heater down the middle for strike one and then fouled a pitch into the seats behind third base.

The next pitch will live in the minds of Arizona fans forever. It will surpass the improbable ninth-inning home runs by Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius in Games 4 and 5 as the most important hit of the World Series. Womack smacked the inside cutter down the right-field line, a solid double that landed seven feet fair. The game was tied. The winning run was on third base.

"I was standing on second base, thinking, 'We got these guys on the ropes. Let's finish them right now so they don't have another chance," Womack said.

Two batters later, the Diamondbacks were World Series champions. Luis Gonzalez got the mob treatment from his teammates on the infield dirt between first and second, but Womack's double set the stage.

"You’re up against arguably the best reliever in all of baseball and you are down to your last couple of outs," said winning pitcher Randy Johnson. "You know, of all people, Tony Womack does it again for us, to get the base hit to keep everything going."

Tony Womack. He had been an All-Star with the Pirates in 1997, his first full year in the majors. But he also led National League second basemen with 20 errors. Even though he led the NL in steals in 1997 and ’98, Womack was traded to Arizona before the start of the 1999 season for two bags of peanuts named Paul Weichard and Jason Boyd.

With Jay Bell at second base, Womack played mostly right field for the Diamondbacks that year. In Game 4 of the Division Series in ‘99, he dropped a flyball in the eighth inning that allowed the Mets to tie the game, which they eventually won on Todd Pratt's home run.

Last year, the team moved Womack to shortstop. He had played the position sparingly in the majors, but proved to be an adequate defensive shortstop, which allowed the team to get a better bat in right field.

But Womack had the big bat on this night.

And there he was, an hour after the game ended, being interviewed on the field by local television. Several hundred diehard Diamondbacks fans remained along the third-base stands, chanting his name.

"To-ny! To-ny!"

David Schoenfield is the baseball editor at ESPN.com.