special delivery

The major league postseason always delivers. Heroes rise. Goats emerge. Great things happen — and so do disasters. Stories become part of a team’s lore. Take today, Oct. 4, in MLB history. No longtime San Francisco Giants fan — or Chicago Cubs fan, either — will forget Will Clark‘s performance in 1989, Game 1 of the National League Championship Series at Wrigley Field. The former Mississippi State star went 4-for-4 with two homers (one a grand slam), four runs and six RBIs to power the Giants to an 11-3 rout. He hit both bombs off Greg Maddux. The Giants would go on to win the best-of-7 series in five games — Clark was MVP — and advance to their first World Series since 1962. (They lost to Oakland in the Earthquake Series.) Digging down in baseball-reference.com’s BR Bullpen page for Oct. 4, several other performances by Magnolia State products jump out. In 1997, ex-Ole Miss standout Jeff Fassero, in his postseason debut, threw eight-plus strong innings for Seattle to beat Baltimore 4-2 in a must-win game for the Mariners, who trailed 2-0 in the best-of-5 American League Division Series contest. Fassero checked the O’s — Rafael Palmeiro, Cal Ripken Jr., Roberto Alomar Jr., et al. — on three hits and four walks, surrendering just one run at Camden Yards. Alas, the Mariners lost Game 4. End of season. On Oct. 4, 2000, Vicksburg native Ellis Burks‘ three-run homer in the third inning propelled San Francisco to a 5-1 win over the New York Mets at Pac Bell Park in Game 1 of the NLDS. Burks, who hit 352 career regular season homers, most by a Mississippi native, belted three in postseason play with three different teams. His bomb for the 2000 Giants came in the only game the club would win in that best-of-5 series. In 2016, Buck Showalter, the former MSU standout, made a managerial decision that still confounds Orioles fans and many others. In the 11th inning of the one-game wild card playoff at Toronto, with the score tied, he didn’t bring in ace closer Zack Britton, who had an 0.54 ERA and 47 saves during the season. After Brian Duensing got the first out, Showalter went with Ubaldo Jimenez, who allowed two singles and a three-run walk-off homer by Edwin Encarnacion, ending Baltimore’s season. That story endures. P.S. MSU alum Brandon Woodruff will not be on Milwaukee’s roster for the NLDS, which starts today against the Cubs. Detroit’s decision on former Biloxi High standout Colt Keith’s status for the ALDS, which begins tonight at Seattle, is still pending.