Thanks to tickets provided by a co-worker, aka Emi, I had the opportunity to catch Saturday night’s Dodgers/Marlins game from a great position – field level, first base side and about 10 rows up from the visitor’s dugout…

…it was a great position to watch another great celebration by the “walk off wonders” aka the 2009 Dodgers…

For most of the game, my attention was directed toward to specific players – Hiroki Kuroda who is on my fantasy baseball team and Manny Ramirez (who isn’t?)…Kuroda turned in a great game for me with 9 strikeouts and only 2 earned runs in 6 innings…not bad considering his recent “not-so-great” outings…Manny did me some good with a single in 5 trips to the plate.

The greatest part of the game, of course, was the bottom of the 9th…Juan Pierre led off the inning, pinch hitting for Broxton who pitched a scoreless 9th to get is 7th victory against zero defeats!…anyway, I told my friend that all I wanted was for someone to get on base so Manny had a chance to win it for us…

Pierre lined out to center…Furcal had a perfect bunt up the first base line that went for a single…Hudson then followed with a sharp line drive single to left field which setup possible hero #1 – Manny Ramirez…

At this point, the fans were on their feet for the rest of the game…Manny struck out much to the chagrin of the crowd, but it setup the situation for possible hero #2 – Andre Ethier…

Ethier, our walk off hero so far this season, drew a walk…this setup the situation for possible hero #3 – Casey Blake…

…bases loaded…2 out…bottom of the 9th…possible game winning situation…this is what you dream about as a kid, right?

Of course, that dream ends with a home run, but as I told my friend, all we need is a lousy single (to take the words out of Rex Hudler’s mouth)…

0-2 count…not looking good…

…2 balls later, things were looking a little better…Marlins pitcher Luis Ayala paced around the mound…2 more balls and he loses the game…he had to throw a strike…

On the 2-2 pitch, Casey made contact and from where I was sitting, I had a great view of something great – the ball coming down and landing on the GRASS between 3 Marlins fielders…

As I like to tell my water polo players, sometimes it’s better to have placement than power on shots and Casey’s certainly was placed perfectly…

DODGERS WIN!