The 2nd Greatest Easter Ever (A Repost)

Below is a repost from Easter of 2006. I may have cleaned up a few things, but this basically the same post as the one that originally went up on April 16, 2006. Unfortunately, that link to the JSOnline story is no longer active, but try to have a Happy Easter.
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The Greatest Easter is obvious to all who believe. The second greatest is a distant second, but it is still worth remembering on a baseball blog.

Brewer fans already know where this is going. Easter Sunday. April 19, 1987.

The game was on the radio out on the porch of my parent's house. We had some family over for a little holiday lunch. It was 4-1 in the bottom of the ninth inning and the Rangers led the Brewers. It looked like there was no way the Crew would rally and the season opening winning streak would end at eleven.

Mitch Williams (yes, that Mitch Williams) walked Glen Braggs, gave up a single to Greg Brock, and retired Cecil Cooper. That's when Bobby Valentine (yes, that Bobby Valentine) brought in Greg Harris to face Rob Deer. An 0-1 breaking ball was almost hit out of the County Stadium to tie the game at 4-4. The crowd was going nuts in the background as Bob Uecker made the call.

"I don't remember running the bases," Deer said. "I got back to the on-deck circle and everybody was jumping all over me."

The jumping wasn't over.

Harris struck out rookie B.J. Surhoff but walked Jim Gantner on a 3-2 pitch. That brought up Sveum, a switch-hitter batting left.

The count again went to 3-2 and Harris threw a fastball. This time the blast was a line drive that rocketed into the right-field bleachers.

Make that 6-4 -- and 12 straight.

The roar that followed lasted for several minutes as Sveum was called out of the clubhouse for two curtain calls and then a third along with Deer.

"This is the greatest day of my life," Deer said. "This is the funnest game I've ever played in.

"I know how those guys feel winning a World Series. That's 10 times more than this, but I don't know how anybody can feel any better than I did walking into this locker room."

Or any better than Brewers fans did walking out of County Stadium that Easter Sunday.

That start of the trip around the bases that Deer doesn't remember was captured for the cover of Sports Illustrated:

Cover from SI.com

After that it was a few ham sandwiches, a nap, and THE TEN COMMANDMENTS on ABC. All-in-all, a pretty good Easter. Right, Chuck?


Exactly.