On August 3, 1991, Todd Zeile burned the Jolly Roger at Busch with a walk off shot to beat the Pirates 6-5 in the tenth inning.The Bucs came into this one hoping to stop a seven game skid, but that would not happen on this day. Although, the effort was there to do so. They jumped on the Redbirds starter Bryn Smith early and often, scoring five runs on him through six. While Smith was getting knocked around the Pirates starter Doug Drabek was getting much of the same treatment. He surrendered 10 hits, gave up four runs, with two of the four being attributed to a pair of errors.
Like Smith, Drabek worked six innings before handing it off to the pen. However, Drabek's pen failed him, as Bob Kipper allowed a lead off home run in the eighth to Milt Thompson to knot things up at five apiece. Thompson had been thrown out at the dish earlier in the contest, so you know that when he got a hold of that one he had to feel great. He set the table for the walk off heroics by Zeile who was the first and last batter to hit in the tenth.
The pitcher that put it in the platter was Bob Patterson, and with one swing of the stick Zeile became a hero, as he stood at the plate and watched it fly over the wall in right. His team mobbed him after he rounded the bases, and the crowd of more than 40,000 stood, cheered, and it likely they high fived a new friend that just happened to be sitting next to them on that fine day in Cardinal Nation.
Zeile led the team in home runs with 11 in 1991. It was the lowest team leading total since 1920, when Austin McHenry led the club with 10.
Check out the box score here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLN/SLN199108030.shtml
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