ARLINGTON, Texas – The man everyone calls Hoggy brandished the blade and started talking about war. Because this is Texas, Derek Holland(notes) has learned to accept such things as a tradeoff for no state income tax. If Richard "Hoggy" Price, the Texas Rangers' clubhouse manager, wants to wield a letter opener shaped like a dagger, he will do so. If he hands it to Holland and urges him to slaughter the St. Louis Cardinals, well, Holland will promise to oblige. And only when he leaves Hoggy's office can Holland remind himself he is at a ball yard, not a prison yard, and no matter how awesome Albert Pujols(notes) is, even Hoggy wouldn't stoop to shivving him.

"I was like, wow, a letter opener," Holland said. "That's great. It's going to motivate me big time."

Holland chuckled. It was 30 minutes after he'd pitched the game of his life, one that saved the Rangers' season and one that he attributed approximately 0.00 percent to the shiny blade that sat on the left side of his locker.

BROWNWOOD, Texas – On the back bumper of fire truck E1-61, a beautiful white vehicle with low mileage and a 400-gallon tank, is a dinky Band-Aid. The firemen change it when bad weather rots it or if it falls off in the middle of a call. They try to keep it fresh as best they can.

The first time the truck went out on call, dispatch radioed about a roadside fire near Merkel. Some old railroad ties were burning. A strike team with a handful of trucks arrived. The blaze was ornery. Wind cut across the Texas plains. It shot flames back toward the truck, so the driver of E1-61 jammed it into reverse and backed it right into a bridge pillar.

The dent eventually rusted into a scar, the sort every fire truck needs to explain where it's been and what it's seen. Often those stories are too much for the firemen themselves to repeat. Their job is to live horror. No sense in waking the past.

Except this story – this one is too good to keep to themselves. Because, damn, was it funny when Shannon

ST. LOUIS – The kids could handle the mess. Never mind that Albert Pujols(notes) created it. This is his clubhouse, where his rules apply and where the term leader is thrown around rather liberally considering real leaders, you know, lead. They own their mistakes, like a ninth-inning error in the World Series, and they damn sure don't let the pups in the clubhouse, the ones in their first postseason, stand and answer questions they're not equipped to answer.

And yet there it was, an empty locker flanked by an empty chair to match the emptiness in the air. The St. Louis Cardinals had blown Game 2 at home, and it hurt. Two sacrifice flies in the ninth inning proved enough for the Texas Rangers, who turned eight innings of despondence into one of triumph in a pulse-pounding 2-1 victory Thursday night. At the center of it was a cutoff throw on which Pujols whiffed. The ball slipped away, allowing what would be the winning run to advance into scoring position. Pujols mimicked the ball,

ST. LOUIS – Bench players live a simple existence. They find their preferred spot in a dugout, like an animal that sniffs out its territory, and plop down. They clap. They deliver high fives. A few hours and a round-shaped imprint in the cushion later, they stand up, take hacks in the batting cage, react appropriately to wins and losses, retreat to the clubhouse and realize they've got the most awesome seven-figure job in the history of ever.

And then there are Tony La Russa's bench players.

Allen Craig(notes), Skip Schumaker(notes), Daniel Descalso(notes) and Ryan Theriot(notes) know the routine. Sometime early in the game – maybe the third inning, maybe the fifth, and on days they're really lucky the seventh – they amble down a few steps, turn a corner, sneak into a long, rectangular room and get to work. Wearing a Cardinals uniform means they report to La Russa, and La Russa manipulates his bench like nobody else. He maximized it to capture the National League pennant and put to

ST. LOUIS – On the benches, the players stare.

The Texas Rangers look at Ron Washington, force of nature, his feet pitter-pattering and his arms windmilling and his mouth spitting out words faster than the Micro Machines man, strutting and dancing and moving and grooving, all led by that phantasmagorical being he calls "The Spirit." It is wonderful theater, this 59-year-old man leading the American League champions through sheer attitude.

The St. Louis Cardinals look at Tony La Russa. They see nothing. No emotion, good or bad. No engagement, right or wrong. They know that his brain is moving like Washington's body, playing through scenarios, matchups, probabilities, statistics, opportunities, doing the intellectual dance that after 33 years still hasn't gotten old. It transfixes them, the fashion in which he helms the National League champions with haughty precision.

These are not just stereotypical portrayals of the two managers of this 107th World Series, two men whose maneuvering

With his uneven, unkempt beard and a fastball that would break the speed limit in all 50 states and on the Autobahn, St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Jason Motte(notes) plays the role of stereotypical closer awfully well. There's just one difference between him and the rest of the late-game lockdown artists in baseball.

Motte can't see where he's throwing.

He's not blind, exactly, but the 29-year-old's nearsightedness is bad enough that he often squints on the mound because he can't see catcher Yadier Molina's(notes) fingers, which indicate the pitch Motte is supposed to throw. Afternoon games at St. Louis' Busch Stadium, with their perilous shadows, are particularly difficult. Sometimes Motte will wave his glove up and down, asking Molina to hold his fingers lower – and, in the process, exposing the sign to the opposing dugout.

"I don't know what my vision is," Motte said, "but I can promise I'm not Ted Williams."

Williams, the Hall of Famer, was famous for his 20/10 eyesight. Motte

MILWAUKEE – On stage stood the architect, the puppeteer and the star. John Mozeliak, Tony La Russa and David Freese(notes), as they are better known, wore matching grins. They are the general manager, manager and third baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals, who minutes earlier won the National League pennant, and they had their arms around one another, finally intertwined literally after spending so much time figuratively.

Around them, a couple dozen ballplayers hugged and poured beer on one another and acted like overgrown children given the run of the room, and nobody was stopping them. Because, really, who or what could stop the Cardinals? Certainly not the Milwaukee Brewers, whose home-field mastery proved no deterrent in the Cardinals' 12-6 victory Sunday night at Miller Park that capped a little more than two weeks during which they've gone from afterthoughts to the World Series.

So the party was raging after Game 6 of the NL Championship Series, Mozeliak going to his first World

ST. LOUIS – Zack Greinke(notes) flipped open his iPad. He wanted to know the name of that movie with Clive Owen and Jessica Alba, the one that was a graphic novel. He needed something to watch for the short flight home to Milwaukee.

Greinke was still in workout gear. Most of his teammates were dressed and on the bus. He took his time. In the most important game of his career, Greinke had not pitched well. His slider lacked its usual sharpness. He didn't strike out a batter for only the second time in 200 career starts. With all those balls in play, his Milwaukee Brewers teammates committed four errors, one shy of the postseason record. Following the first one, Greinke slammed the ball on the dirt in frustration. It ricocheted back and hit him.

It was that kind of night. Bad bounces and self-inflicted pain.

Who the Brewers are and who the playoffs say they are – those are two different things. The Brewers won 96 regular-season games. The playoffs say they are one game from their season