Baseball is a game of moments. When I was playing, the moments I treasured most were as a pitcher. I loved the feeling of control you had there and the game within the game. As a hitter, there are few moments better than knowing you connected on a pitch and had extra bases in sight. Within all this big and little moments that create the game we so love, there is one that I can't recall ever getting to feel, and that is a walk-off. A walk-off is the most dramatic and awe-inducing moment in baseball. The game literally is over because of what you've done. Walk-offs are the physical apparition of the hopes and dreams of endlessly optimistic fans coming true. While I'll never know what it's like to have a walk-off hit, barring some weird "Rookie of the Year" accident but for hitting, I have been able to witness a few in person and they are truly incredible.
The first walk-off I ever witnessed was in 2017. It was a June game between the Padres and Brewers. The score was tied 5-5 after 9. After the Brewers locked down the top of the 10th, Eric Thames came to lead it off. With a 1-1 count, Thames hit a ball higher than I've ever seen at Miller Park. I'm pretty sure it hit its apex just past the shortstop. With that ball in the air I was a doubter, expecting it to be caught at least 10 feet from the wall much to the disappointment of the already gasping Brewer crowd. By some miracle, that ball bounced off the top and over, winning the game. It was one of the most ridiculous home runs I've seen. Despite me not hitting it, I was finally a part of a walk-off, and it felt really good.
The best walk-off I've ever seen was the following year. It was an early April game against the Cardinals where the Brewers fell into an early hole, giving up back to back home runs as the game started. I was in a familiar position, one where no matter what, the Cardinals would consistently and in the most annoying way beat the Brewers. Even the minimal times we won the season series didn't make up for it. This however was not like other years, we had a secret weapon. Christian Yelich had just been on the team and no one had told him the history involved. Down to the last strike, Yelich beamed his first Brewers' dinger into right-center. The crowd had life again as our new hero had delivered us from the jaws of La Russa's ghost. Before everyone could compose themselves and finish celebrating what had just happened, Ryan Braun smoked the very next pitch out. The rapid combination of the two produced absolute hysteria. I was at the game with my friend and noted Ryan Braun-truther Nathan Rodebaugh, and we just started running up and down our aisle high-fiving and celebrating with everyone we saw. I just witnessed the event and I felt invincible. I cannot imagine how Braun felt afterwards.
In Brewers' history there have plenty of other notable walk-offs. Nyjer Morgan's "tickle" into center field in Game 5 of the 2011 NLDS took the Brewers a series away from the World Series. Another notable one is Prince Fielder's explosion in 2009 that every kid in the Milwaukee area practiced with their friends in the backyard. Going beyond the Brewers, you cannot help but watch in awe each home run and everything that comes with it. Walk-offs are like snowflakes, each one is different. Around each one is the pure joy that baseball brings out from the kid in all of us. Sometimes you get to launch a bomb over the fence, and other times all it takes it poking your bat out there and hitting it where the defenders aren't. No matter how it happens, I think we can all agree that walk-offs are great and should be celebrated however they come about.
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