Pretty good read here. I hope Bill is wrong too.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st ... ons/051018
By Bill Simmons
Page 2

I feel like flying to Houston and giving everyone a hug.

See, I've been there. It's a special club, and not really in a good way. When you get punched in the stomach by a sporting event -- I mean, truly walloped -- you're never quite the same afterward. The Red Sox have won the World Series; I even wrote a book about it called "Now I Can Die in Peace." But that's the thing: You never truly have peace. The strangest things end up triggering painful memories, the stuff you thought had been buried long ago.

During the ninth inning of Monday night's Cards-Astros game, I wasn't hoping the Astros would win. I was hoping they wouldn't blow it. There's a difference. Weird things happen when you haven't won in a long time; the poor Astros have never even appeared in a World Series. After awhile, in that situation, you start expecting to lose. Then one of those seasons rolls around when good things keep happening, and they keep happening, and you wait for the other shoe to drop ... only it never does. Eventually, you reach a point that Houston fans reached Monday night -- you drop your guard, assume everything is different this season, give in to the moment -- and that's when sports can truly crush you. It's happened to me. I didn't want it to happen to them.

And yes, I saw it coming. Before Eckstein's at-bat in the ninth, I remember thinking, "This has to rank among the happiest crowds I've ever seen at a baseball game." They were three levels beyond ecstatic. They could smell it. They were headed to the World Series. Then Eckstein bleeded out a grounder for a single. You could hear the subtle change inside the ballpark, a slight shift in sound and demeanor.

Uh-oh. These are the Astros. Keep your guard up.

I knew that sound. Knew that feeling better than anyone. Lidge started having trouble throwing strikes against Edmonds. Suddenly, people weren't screaming and waving those towels anymore. You could feel the wheels slowly starting to squeak. Pujols was on deck -- nobody wanted any part of him. They started showing those awkward shots of the guys in the dugout, or the people in the stands, everyone with that frozen, "Oh, my God" face going. When Edmonds walked and Lidge seemed rattled enough that Phil Garner felt obliged to visit the mound, the terror alert was officially raised to red.

Now Pujols was digging in with one of those, "He better not hang a slider" looks on his face. If that wasn't scary enough, Fox showed a "St. Louis Cardinals: 39 comeback wins in reg. season" graphic. And this is where I hate what happened to me as a sports fan, because I don't think normally about this stuff anymore. Even before the first pitch to Pujols, I was sitting there thinking about the following five things...

1. Eckstein's single was just like Gary Carter's single in Game 6 of the '86 Series at Shea -- seemingly innocent, but not really.

2. Lidge has already thrown eight pitches that could have recorded the final out -- five away from the number of pitches Schiraldi and Stanley threw before the Mets tied Game 6.

3. The situation bore an eerie resemblance to Game 5 of the 1986 ALCS, the last time somebody blew a series-clinching ninth inning at home (Angels-Red Sox, aka the Dave Henderson Game). That series had policemen on horses protecting the field even before the final out (just about the biggest jinx ever), as well as tortured Angels manager Gene Mauch staring blankly from the dugout (saddled by his own immense baggage from Philly's '64 collapse) and a franchise that had never made the World Series. This series had the Astros still hoping to break their 43-year drought to make their first World Series as well as a brutal history of home losses in the NLCS (1980 and 1986). No horses, though.

4. Al Michaels announced the Hendu game 20 years ago; during the latter stages of Monday night's Astros-Cards game, he was announcing "Monday Night Football" at the same time on ABC. Warrants mentioning.

5. Roger Clemens was in the dugout for the Hendu Game, Game 6 at Shea ... and Monday night's game. Also warrants mentioning.

There was one other thought, of course: Please don't let Lidge throw a strike to Pujols.

Why do I think of these things? Because 1986 and 2003 wiped me out, that's why. You never truly get over it. When the Sox won the Series, I always assumed that the scars from Game 6 and the Grady Little Game would heal. Well, they don't. That's why they're scars. Last winter, about two months after the Red Sox won the title, I stumbled across a replay of Game 6 on ESPN Classic and ended up watching most of it. I couldn't pull myself from the television. That's the thing about scars -- they never go away.

So I was fearing the worst, and I'm not even an Astros fan. Two pitches later, Pujols crushed a hanging slider about 900 feet to give St. Louis the lead, followed by the worst sound in sports -- a sellout crowd shrieking in horror, followed by a prolonged, wailing-like noise, followed by a creepy silence where you only hear the visitors celebrating. When Magic made the famous sky hook against the Celtics in the '87 Finals, we made that sound in the Garden, followed by that same wailing and the same silence, and you could actually hear the Lakers congratulating Magic on their bench. That's how quiet it was. Same for the Angels-Sox game -- Al Michaels finishes the first part of his call ("And it's gone!"), followed by the wailing and the silence.

It's awful. It's an awful, disorienting sound.

And I hate to say it, but teams rarely rally back from that moment. In my "Levels of Losing" column from three years ago, Monday night's nightmare qualifies as a full-fledged Stomach Punch (Level 2, one from the top) for Astros fans -- it only would have been worse if they were one strike from winning the World Series. Given the circumstances and the history of Houston's franchise, Pujols' homer has to rank on the short list along with Mookie/Buckner, Hendu, Grady Little, Sid Bream, Jose Mesa, Earnest Byner, Scott Norwood, Steve Bartman and every other ultra-excruciating defeat that can be described in two words or less. The true Stomach Punch losses are the ones you never see coming, the ones that make you say things like, "I may have to call in sick for work" and "I'm skipping that exam, I can't function."

Of course, in that same column, I created another level just for this precise situation -- the "Dead Man Walking" game (Level 7). After blowing Game 5 of the ALCS, the Angels were finished -- they flew cross-country to Boston and lost the final two games by a combined score of 275-2. At least that's what it felt like. They were never in either game. During every other comparable situation in recent baseball history (Game 7 of the 2003 NLCS and Game 7 of the 1985, 1986 and 2002 World Series being the most memorable), the reeling team couldn't bounce back. That's why it's a Dead Man Walking Game: Maybe you still have a chance ... but really, you don't.

(Note: There's one exception here -- the D-Backs' rallying back from the Byung-Hyun Kim/Yankees debacle during the 2001 World Series, although the last two games were in Arizona, and they didn't have enough of a franchise history for their fans to even fully understand what had just happened -- the Arizona fans were like the Mexican fans watching the Cardinals-Niners game two weeks ago. I'm not even sure those Arizona fans understood the basic baseball rules during those games, so I'm not counting them. You can make these decisions when it's your theory. Back to the column.)

Sadly, the rest of the Astros-Cards series seems predictably depressing (unless you're a St. Louis fan). Not only are the Cardinals back at home, not only have they been handed a second life, but out of every sport, baseball hinges on emotion and momentum more than anything else. In the NBA, teams can lose the most devastating game possible and bounce back two days later as a completely different team (like the Nets after Game 3 of the 2002 Boston series). That doesn't work in baseball. Once you have the momentum, the other team has to take it back. And they can't do that when they're reeling on the road and wondering what the hell just happened. That's why I believe the Astros are finished, just like that '86 Angels team was.

And yes, I hope I'm wrong. Actually, I would love to be wrong. As the e-mails started pouring into my mailbox from Astros fans last night -- some venting incoherently, some wondering what they did to deserve the Pujols homer, others wondering if they were stupid for still thinking the Astros had a chance -- I could feel the despair seeping through my laptop screen. A local named Amar summed it up best: "I was there [at Minute Maid], and the electricity in the air when there were 2 outs until just after [Pujols] unloaded the big guns was just something I can't describe. In fact, I can't type any more. I feel too sick."

Amar, I know the feeling. You could even call me an expert. And according to my research, your team is cooked unless they can create a new Level of Losing for the Cardinals -- the "Reverse Dead Man Walking" Game on either Wednesday or Thursday. Then again, stranger things have happened ... after all, the defending champions right now remain the 2004 Boston Red Sox. If that doesn't give you hope, I don't know what does.

Hang in there, Houston. You never know.

I think the Stros will win the series, thus proving Bill Simmons and his everything in the universe is related to my beloved red sox theories wrong.

My wife and I were watching this game and just before the Pujols HR she was saying the crowd was "too excited". Meaning - even though she's not really a baseball fan she's seen enough of the game by being married to a baseball fan to know how quickly shit can change.
And Simmons described the sound in Houston accurately. The way the wind was just sucked out of the ballpark. The bottom half of the ninth the crowd were zombies. Normally - if your team is only a run down in the ninth with a chance to go to the Series the crowd is jumping. But this crowd had been sucker punched. They had nothing left. They were "too excited".

Again, why would you pitch to Pujols in that situation? Sanders is a good hitter, but it's freaking PUJOLS.

Poo holes.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH AHHAHAHAJAJAJAJJAJAJAJAJAJAJA

Maybe because walking him would put the tying run in scoring position?

Yes.

Poo holes was 1 for 8 lifetime against Lidge with 1 rbi, it was the perfect situation to pitch to him.

wouldn't another exception to the Nobody Wins After a "Dead Man Walking Game" Rule be the Reds winning in 75 after losing game 6 to Boston on the Fisk home run?

hey that dont fit Simmons' shakey argument!!!

:yawn:

Can't wait 'til Roy puts all these obituaries in the trash can... bring it on.

And Lidge is arguably the most dominant closer in the game.

Yeah and didn't the Yankees do the same thing twice to the D-backs in '01 only to end up losing the series.

he mentioned that.

you could also another exception would be the Mariners coming back to beat the Yankees in 95 after the Leyritz home run in game 2 - although that would be a bit of a stretch.

Oh yeah I was just making sure you were paying attention.

My sister made that joke with Luis Pujols circa 1980.

You lose.

You've got two outs, two runners on, and arguably the best player in baseball at the plate. Putting the tying run in scoring position isn't trumped by that?

Roy Oswalt won't let it go to a game 7.