It was his final swing of the National League Championship Series, and the baseball roared off Daniel Murphy‘s bat like an Airbus lifting off the runway at O’Hare.
As it split the night air over Wrigley Field, you could hear 42,227 people gasp. And the looks on their faces told the story of Murphy’s seventh home run of this magical October, of one more ball leaving one more ballpark for the sixth postseason game in a row.
You could see the shock, witness the disbelief, watch their mouths utter expressions like, “No frigging way.” This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be possible. But it was.
Well, if it’s any consolation to all those fans of the home team, Murphy’s teammates on your 2015 National League champions, the New York Mets, shared every bit of that disbelief. They were on their way to the World Series. And he was driving the bus.
“Words can’t describe it right now,” said Michael Cuddyer, as the Freixenet Cordon Negro overflowed in the clubhouse of a team that had just swept the Chicago Cubs without ever trailing for one pitch, finishing it off with a stress-free 8-3 win Wednesday night. “The way he’s playing, the way he’s swinging the bat, if I tried to describe it with words, I’d be doing an understatement. So I’m not even going to try.”