NewsKent's homer a special moment
Walk-off shot in 2004 NLCS Game 5 a favorite memory
By Alyson Footer / MLB.com
04/09/09 2:25 PM ET
HOUSTON -- Jeff Kent scowled a lot in his career. Sometimes the scowls were directed toward a particular person, such as a reporter, or a teammate, such as Lance Berkman, when he committed one of his humorous but boneheaded moves.In his baseball life, Kent, simply put, was surly. He had a reputation as a great player, a tremendous teammate, a hard worker -- and, overwhelmingly, not the happiest camper in the tent.
That last part made no difference to the low-maintenance Astros, led by Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio. Their list of requirements consisted of two items: show up ready to play, and play hard. In that respect, it didn't matter if Kent smiled or frowned or laughed or ignored them. He was the perfect teammate, even if he wasn't interested in dining with those teammates when the game was over.
But it's exactly that aloofness that makes Kent's reaction to one of the biggest home runs of his career -- and one of the truly defining moments for an Astros franchise that had so little postseason success before his arrival -- so endearing.
Kent smiled. He laughed. In some ways, he turned into a kid, enjoying the moment with unbridled jubilation found on a Little League Field.
In a rare moment of emotion, Kent let his guard down.
"For about six or seven minutes," Bagwell remembered with a chuckle. "That's a long time for him."
The Astros spent much of their opening homestand saluting their 10th season at Minute Maid Park, running an endless supply of highlight videos from the best of the past decade in downtown Houston.
They invited a slew of former players and managers who impacted the Astros' first decade downtown back to the ballpark, and among the honored guests was Kent, whose walk-off home run off Jason Isringhausen on Oct. 18, 2004, gave the Astros a 3-2 lead in the National League Championship Seres, sending the series back to St. Louis.
The home run ended an epic pitching matchup between Brandon Backe and Woody Williams, neither of whom allowed a run through eight innings.
The Astros turned to Brad Lidge to pitch the ninth, and the Cardinals countered with their closer, who at the time was the more established of the two.
Carlos Beltran led off with a base hit off Isringhausen, and with a 2-2 count on Berkman, Beltran stole second. That prompted Isringhausen to intentionally walk Berkman and face Kent, who sent a first-pitch cut fastball directly into the Crawford Boxes in left field.
Four-and-a-half years later, images of that home run are still vivid in the minds of several key figures from that 2004 team. Kent doesn't remember a lot about the minutes following the home run, but he remembers the noise. Minute Maid Park had never been louder. There's loud, and then there's ear-splitting.
"At the World Series in 2002, the crowd was loud in Anaheim and San Francisco," Kent said. "But that moment just was such a fast eruption. I don't remember running around the bases much. I don't remember what I wanted to do at the plate. It was so overwhelming. It blurred it all out for me."
The most recognizable snapshot depicts Kent tossing his helmet aside, just before he was mobbed by his teammates. But Bagwell best remembers the few seconds just before the helmet toss.
"I remember him running down the third-base line, going 'One more, one more,'" Bagwell said.
And the smile. Who could forget the smile?
"That was really uncharacteristic of him," former manager Phil Garner recalled. "He's normally so stoic, and it's like things don't get to him that much."
Except when it inches a team one game closer to the World Series.
"I'm a pretty quiet, respectful guy when it comes to playing the game," Kent said. "But that crowd, that home run, the way the crowd erupted and knowing where the Astros were going, or wanted to go ... it was the largest moment in their history at that time, and I decided to come out of my box for 15 seconds. And that was neat."
It would have been neater, Kent pointed out, if the team had actually clinched the pennant, but two losses in St. Louis ended Houston's World Series hopes and its season.
Still, Kent's regrets never overshadowed his appreciation for that snapshot moment, one that brought a city of baseball fans together in ways the Astros had never been able to do in the past.
"If we could have just won one more game, that would have been awesome," Kent said. "But Jim Edmonds did the same thing the next night, hitting a home run to win the game for them. So it kind of washed that event out for me. I was in it to win. I wasn't in it for a moment. I was in it to win. But it's still something I won't forget."
Alyson Footer is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
