Murray Chase has a great account of what for me is the most memorable game during my years as a Braves fan. I'm sure everyone has their own most memorable game.
The Atlanta Braves tonight staged the kind of comeback that produces championships. The comeback might even be a sign, if you believe in that sort of thing.
"I don't believe in that stuff," Bobby Cox, the Atlanta manager, said. "I believe in good players."
The Braves had some of those, too, as they overcame Cincinnati's six-run outburst in the first inning and edged the Reds, 7-6, on David Justice's electrifying two-run home run against Rob Dibble in the ninth inning.
The stunning turnaround kept the Braves one game behind the Los Angeles Dodgers, who defeated San Diego, 3-1, in the National League West race. Each team has only four games to play and could be headed for a one-game playoff in Los Angeles next Monday.
The Braves' latest contribution to the scintillating race was highly improbable. The Reds, the fallen World Series champions, battered Charlie Leibrandt in the first inning, with Joe Oliver hitting a grand slam for the climax of the early eruption.
Justice estimated the odds for a Braves' comeback at "about a billion to one."
But Lou Piniella, who has made a life study of racetrack odds, did not find the circumstances so dire.
"We've lost a few games this way this year," the Cincinnati manager said. "Dibble's been struggling. They've been hitting him."
It wasn't just Dibble, though, whom the Braves overcame. Cox was concerned about Jose Rijo, "one of the best pitchers in baseball," and also "one of the best bullpens in baseball."
"And they had eight more innings to score runs," he added.
Not to be overlooked in the ecstasy of the unlikely comeback of the Braves' hitters was the performance of the Braves' pitchers. Leibrandt, who pitched only two more innings, and four relievers -- Pete Smith, Mike Bielecki, Mike Stanton and Alejandro Pena -- stymied the Reds on three hits in the last eight innings.
Meanwhile, the Braves pecked away at Rijo and Norm Charlton, the Reds' first reliever, and were only one run down when the ninth inning began.
Mark Lemke led off the ninth and stroked a single to center field. Deion Sanders, on vacation from the Atlanta Falcons, ran for him and stole second. Terry Pendleton, who collected four hits in his first four times at bat, was the next batter, but he hit a harmless fly to center for the first out.
"Pick me up," Pendleton told Justice as they passed between the plate and the on-deck circle.
"I was trying to pump myself up," Justice related later, "and I said, 'O.K., I'll pick you up.' "
Justice, a Cincinnati native, needed to pick himself up. In the seventh inning, after successive run-scoring singles by Lemke and Pendleton against Charlton slashed the Reds' lead to 6-5, Justice swung at Charlton's first pitch to him and hit a foul pop behind the plate for the first out.
"I didn't do the job there," Justice said, "but I guess I redeemed myself in the ninth."
Facing the flame-throwing Dibble, Justice instantly extinguished the pitcher's heat, driving his first pitch, a fastball "right down the middle," over the right-field fence.
"I pulled a muscle in my back jumping up and down in the dugout," Mark Grant, an Atlanta pitcher, said.
The Reds still had a chance to tie or win the game, but Pena, the Braves' latest closer, retired them on two grounders and a strikeout. Pena, acquired from the Mets Aug. 29, got his ninth save in nine save opportunities for the Braves.
The Reds' relievers obviously were not as effective. The first was Charlton, who had been ordered reinstated by Bill White, the National League president, from a seven-day suspension in the interest of fairness to both teams in the race. He replaced Rijo after the starter, who had a 9-0 record at home and the lowest earned run average in the league (2.32), gave up a pinch-hit single to Jeff Treadway and walked Lonnie Smith with no one out in the seventh.
Lemke drove in one run with a 400-foot single over Mariano Duncan's head in center field. Pendleton, who had hit a home run in the fifth, singled across another. Justice popped up, but Charlton threw a wild pitch, putting runners at second and third. He walked Ron Gant intentionally, then struck out Brian Hunter. Greg Olson hit a wicked line drive that appeared to be headed into left field for a two- or three-run double, but Chris Sabo made a leaping catch for the third out.
As it turned out, Sabo only interrupted -- he did not end -- the Braves' remarkable comeback.
