My brother won the College Jeopardy! Championship in 2009. I am fairly certain that I brag about that fact more than he does. The day after he won, I went to Schnucks, bought a copy of the Post-Dispatch, and as if I were George Bailey and he my hero brother returning from war, I showed everyone the article describing his win: the checker, the bagger, a curmudgeonly capitalist. I wasn’t surprised by his win. When he qualified for the show I was supremely confident he would win it all. Trivia has always been a family pastime and over the years whether it be text message or in person we try to stump each other in trivia. The tradition has passed down to my children, who now ask if we can play trivia games while driving in the car. Although as the years have progressed, my quiz masters have lost a little enthusiasm. The last time we drove to Hilton Head, I asked the family if they could tell me the first state to secede from the union, all I heard in response was the unmistakable increase in volume of the backseat Nintendo.
To honor that love of trivia, each issue we have a trivia question related to that issue’s topic that will hopefully help you stump your favorite Cardinal fan.
Q: Other than Bob Gibson, who has started the most Game 7s in Cardinals history?
A: Jeff Suppan
That sounds wrong, doesn’t it? As if I am trying to trick you, so that you will be humiliated at a party while discussing your favorite piece of Cardinal trivia or an esoteric stat.
I have to believe upon reading your question, you started rattling off the great Cardinal pitchers that have started a Game 7: Dizzy Dean, Chris Carpenter, John Tudor, Jesse Haines, Joaquin Andujar. Guys you would expect, guys you trust, guys you wanted to see on the mound with the season in the line.
“Danny Cox!” you may have exclaimed. Until you realized that yes, he started Game 7 of the 1987 NLCS, but he was just the losing pitcher in Game 7 of the World Series, it was Joe Magrane who started that game.
But no, of all those great pitchers, none of them - not even Danny Cox - started more Game 7s than Jeff Suppan, who took the mound in both Game 7 of the 2004 and 2006 NLCS. The last Cardinal to start multiple Game 7s since Gibson toed the rubber in Game 7 of the 1968 World Series.
Other than Carlos Beltran, there were not too many similarities between 2004 and 2006. In 2004, Suppan faced an Astros lineup sporting three hall of famers, six players that would end their careers with a Top-4 or better MVP season, and seven All-Stars. And don’t forget, in 2004, Suppan went head to head with Roger Clemens in Game 7 of the NLCS, throwing six innings to out pitch the Rocket and help send the Cardinals to the World Series for the first time in 19 years.
But even though Suppan’s first Game 7 was so impressive and his counterpart for this Game 7 (Oliver Perez) not nearly as daunting, the Mets weren’t that intimidated in having to face the affectionately nick named ‘Soup in 2006. John Ricco, the Mets’ Assistant General Manager, in an interview with the New York Post five years after the game, recalled thinking Suppan “was a good pitcher but he was definitely a guy that was beatable.”
Perhaps buoyed by that confidence, the Mets struck in the home half of the first when a Carlos Beltran double with two outs was followed by a David Wright single two batters later. It was 1-0 Mets. Amazingly (?) surprisingly (?), unbelievably (?) those would be the only two hits Suppan surrendered all night.
He may not have allowed another hit after the first, but that did not means Suppan effortlessly mowed down the Mets the rest of the game. Two walks (one intentional) and an error, loaded the bases with only one out in the sixth inning and it would take a Gibsonian performance from Suppan to keep the game tied.
Jose Valentine was up first and Suppan set him down with a strikeout on a beautiful curveball – even though he did not want to throw it. “In my mind, I was going to stay away from the curveball in this situation. I had bases loaded, I had been in the dirt with the curveball before,” Suppan told the New York Post five years later.
With now two outs, Endy Chavez - a half inning removed from making a heartbreakingly spectacular catch to rob Scott Rolen of a home run - was coming to the plate and the bases were still loaded. It almost seem preordained. A game saving catch followed by a game winning hit and we would forever know this as the Endy Chavez Game.
But that catch was rendered to a footnote, because Suppan needed just one pitch to induce Chavez into a pop out and the Mets left the sixth with three men on base and the score still tied at one.
Suppan would pitch into the eighth after retiring the Mets in order in the seventh. But to lead off the eighth he walked Beltran and LaRussa elected to turn the tied game over to Randy Flores and the Cardinal bullpen. “Suppan can be frustrated with this 1-1 game,” Joe Buck observed to the national audience. “But he should be awfully proud of the way he pitched here in Game 7.”
With an appreciative pat on the chest from La Russa, Suppan left the game. Braden Looper called Suppan’s performance “probably the greatest game I’ve ever seen pitched.” As hyperbolic as it may seem, Suppan’s performance in both his Game 7s was brilliant and on par with what Bob Gibson gave the Cardinal teams of the 60s.
While Suppan would not be the winner of Game 7, thanks to a Yadi homer and the Waino strikeout, he would still be awarded NLCS MVP – only the fourth Cardinal in franchise history to be named the most valuable player of a NLCS.
SOUP!
It's funny how such memorable games are kind of forgotten until you are reminded of them, but once you are reminded, all the emotions return and you are magically returned to the time and place of the game(s), who you were with, and the joy of the moment.
We affirm at least one of Dostoevsky's passages in The Brothers Karamazov, "united by such good and fine feelings as made us, too . . . perhaps better than we actually are".