King Kaufman's Sports Daily

The Shot Heard Over the Crawford Boxes: Titanic Pujols blast beats Astros, keeps Cardinals alive.

Read more: Sports, Baseball, News, World Series, Salon News, King Kaufman, Baseball Playoffs, Sports Daily, Baseball Postseason 2005

Oct. 18, 2005 | Now that was a home run.

Albert Pujols hit a Brad Lidge slider into orbit Monday night, a cartoon blast, one that leaves a hole in the wall behind the left-field bleachers while still rising and then keeps going, flying over points on the map: El Paso, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Kamchatka ...

With that three-run shot, the St. Louis Cardinals, moments earlier one strike from elimination, beat the Houston Astros 5-4 in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, sending it back to St. Louis. The Astros still lead the series 3-2, just the same as last year, when they went north and lost two in a row.

The Astros had built their 4-2 lead Monday on a three-run homer by Lance Berkman in the seventh inning. That was a cheapie, a Minute Maid Park special into the so-called Crawford boxes, the short-porch seats in left that turn routine fly balls into titanic shots in the box score.

Not that Berkman's hit wasn't legit. As Fox TV analyst Bob Brenly pointed out, that left-field fence had been sitting in the same place for both teams all series long.

But still. To compare Berkman's homer to Pujols' is to say this column is somehow similar to "Moby-Dick."

Pujols' homer sent guys like me scrambling to our memory banks and record books looking for comparisons. The two that sprung to mind for me were the Dave Henderson game in the 1986 American League Championship Series and Jeff Kent's Game 5-winner against the Cardinals in last year's NLCS.

In that 1986 Game 5, as in this one, the winning team, the Boston Red Sox, had been down three games to one and down to their last strike. And the opponent, the California Angels, like this year's Astros, were trying to get to the World Series for the first time.

Henderson, who earlier had had a Bobby Grich drive bounce off his glove and go up and over the fence for a homer that gave the Angels a 3-2 lead, hit a two-run shot in the top of the ninth to put Boston on top 6-5.

The Angels tied that game in the ninth before the Sox won in the 11th on a sacrifice fly by Henderson. Boston went home and won Games 6 and 7.

Pujols didn't go from goat to hero like Henderson did, though he had gone 0-for-4, twice making out with two men on base. On the other hand, Henderson's homer came off a fairly ordinary reliever, the tragic Donnie Moore, while Pujols' came against Lidge, one of the game's best, who until this series had dominated the Cardinals.

Next page: Can the Cardinals come all the way back? Plus: A better way for us to talk to each other