The Wizard of Pods

Just really weird. When Podsednik knocked it out, I actually yelled out loud, "Are you kidding me???" This prompted Alma, in the other room and with no idea about what I was yelling, to reply, "...no?"

You've already heard the stats, of course: Podsednik now has two postseason home runs after having none in 507 at-bats during the regular season; he's only the 14th guy in history to end a World Series game with a dinger. Well, here's something you haven't seen: those home runs, ranked.

The Top 14 World Series Walkoff Home Runs of All-Time

14. Chad Curtis
The Situation: Game Three of the 1999 World Series. The Yankees had already won the first two games in Atlanta by a combined 11-3 score. The Braves led 5-1 in this third game, but the Yankees came back with one in the fifth, one in the seventh, and two more in the eighth (on a Chuck Knoblauch home run). Mariano Rivera threw two scoreless innings in the ninth and tenth, and Curtis led off the bottom of the tenth with his second home run of the game, a solo shot that gave the Yankees the 5-4 win.
Series Result: The Yankees end up winning in four straight games for the second straight year.
Why It's Here: No home run on this list carried quite so little ultimate drama as Curtis'. His team was already up 2-0, they had two more home games coming up even if they lost this one, and the Braves' bats were freezing; besides Bret Boone, who hit a stunning .538, no one on the Braves who had at least seven at-bats in the four-game series hit better than .231, and Andruw Jones and Brian Jordan were a combined 2-for-26. This didn't turn any tides, that's for sure.

13. Mark McGwire
The Situation: Game Three of the 1988 World Series (which, of course, features a more famous shot we'll see later). The Dodgers have taken the first two at home and the A's desperately need a win, which they get. Four Oakland pitchers hold L.A. to one run on eight hits, and while the A's get only five hits, the last is a solo bomb from a young McGwire in the bottom of the ninth to pull Oakland within 2-1 in the series.
Series Result: Oakland doesn't win again; 4-1, Dodgers.
Why It's Here: While McGwire's homer could theoretically have been a momentum changer, it wasn't. The A's lost Game Four and were shut down (two runs on four hits) by Series MVP Orel Hershiser in a complete-game Game Five clincher. The home run was also McGwire's only sign of life in the entire series, all but literally; in five games, he hit 1-for-17, .059. Only Jose Canseco - who popped out right before McGwire's blast - was worse, going just 1-for-19, .053. (For the series, three A's regulars hit below .100. And you wonder why they lost?)

12. Dusty Rhodes
The Situation: Game One of the 1954 World Series. The Indians, winners six years prior, had won 111 games in the regular season, but that didn't stop the Giants from stealing one. The Indians got two in the first, but New York tied it back up with two in the third and it stayed that way until the bottom of the tenth. After Willie Mays walked and stole second, Hank Thompson was walked intentionally to bring up Monte Irvin. Rhodes came on to pinch-hit for Irvin and took Bob Lemon - in his tenth inning of work - out of the yard for a three-run homer and a 5-2 win.
Series Result: The Giants end up shutting down the powerhouse Indians in four straight games.
Why It's Here: A pinch-hit home run is pretty dramatic (again, see below), but Rhodes wasn't nursing any lingering injuries, and the Giants ended up running away with the Series, as the Indians hit a brutal .190 as a team. With that kind of pounding in effect, any drama is pretty much canceled out.

11. Tommy Henrich
The Situation: Game One of the 1949 World Series. Henrich becomes the first man ever to hit a walkoff home run in a Series game, as his solo shot off Don Newcombe in the bottom of the ninth opened the scoring and ended the game, 1-0.
Series Result: The Yankees lose Game Two by the same 1-0 score, but win easily in five.
Why It's Here: Though it deserves credit for starting a trend, Henrich's homer isn't well-remembered and rightfully so; the Yankees mostly coasted in this Series and surely would have won with or without Henrich's help.

10. Scott Podsednik
The Situation: Game Two of the 2005 World Series. Despite having no home runs in the 2005 season, the light-hitting Podsednik smacks his second of the playoffs in the bottom of the ninth - even more improbably, it comes off of Houston Astros closer Brad Lidge, usually lights-out (though this is the second straight appearance in which Lidge has conceded a home run that lost his team the game). The White Sox win 7-6.
Series Result: As of this writing, the White Sox hold a 2-0 lead.
Why It's Here: It's too soon to rank this one any higher, and if things keep going the Sox's way, it won't deserve to be any higher. With all the bounces that have gone Chicago's way in these playoffs, was anyone really expecting Jose Vizcaino's two-run single to slow down the Sox?

9. Mickey Mantle
The Situation: Game Three of the 1964 World Series. Entering the twilight of his career (1964 was the then-32-year-old Mantle's last season with 30 home runs, 100 RBI, as many as 110 hits, and a .300 average), Mantle belts what is, aside from his 500th home run in 1967, pretty much his last hurrah - though he hits three home runs in the Series and this is only the first, Mantle's blast in the bottom of the ninth makes the Yankees 2-1 winners and gives them a 2-1 Series lead.
Series Result: Though Mantle hits another in Game Seven, the Cardinals win it 7-5 and take the Series 4-3.
Why It's Here: It's a dramatic moment for an aging star, but Mantle's walkoff didn't even help his team win the Series, as the Yankees fell to a team with better pitching (MVP Bob Gibson was 2-1 with a 3.00 ERA and 31 Ks in 27 IP for the Redbirds).

8. Derek Jeter
The Situation: Game Four of the 2001 World Series. The reigning three-time champions, the Yankees are on the ropes after having lost the first two games in Arizona by a combined 13-1. The Diamondbacks can't pitch Schilling and Johnson in every game, though. New York squeaks by 2-1 in Game Three, and while Schilling dominates again in Game Four, he leaves before the eighth. Byung-Hyun Kim coasts through the eighth, but runs into trouble the next inning, conceding a game-tying two-run shot to Tino Martinez. He comes out for the tenth, his third inning, but while Scott Brosius and Alfonso Soriano fly out, Jeter takes Kim deep again to win the game 4-3 and even the Series at 2-2.
Series Result: The first chink in Mariano Rivera's armor came in Game Seven of this one, as the Diamondbacks won the Series in dramatic fashion, four games to three.
Why It's Here: Again, Jeter's team didn't end up winning the Series, and they hit just .183 as a team. Jeter, despite the Game Four heroics, had an uncharacteristically lousy Series, hitting just .148. This solo shot was his only RBI, and he struck out six times.

7. Alex Gonzalez
The Situation: Game Four of the 2003 World Series. Down 2-1 after losing Games Two and Three by matching 6-1 scores, the Marlins need a win at home to get back into it. They score three runs in the first and then cling on for dear life, but all seems lost to typical Yankee magic as New York scores two in the ninth on a Ruben Sierra pinch-hit triple to tie it. Chad Fox and Braden Looper combine to shut down the Yankees over three extra innings, however, and Gonzalez leads off the bottom of the twelfth with a solo bomb off Jeff Weaver to win it 4-3 for the Fish.
Series Result: The Marlins win the next two as well and take the Series in six.
Why It's Here: Things were probably starting to look like "same old Yankees" at this point, so Gonzalez's home run can be considered a legitimate tide-turner. That said, it doesn't have quite the same cachet of the six above it.

6. Carlton Fisk
The Situation: Game Six of the 1975 World Series. Trailing Cincinnati 3-2 but having the final two games at home, the Red Sox are down 6-3 in the bottom of the eighth when Bernie Carbo hits a dramatic two-out, pinch-hit three-run homer to tie it. The game goes to extras, where Dick Drago and Rick Wise hold the Reds scoreless thanks in part to Dwight Evans' catch that robbed Joe Morgan of at least extra bases. Fisk led off the bottom of the twelfth and hit a towering shot to left; his waving of the ball fair while starting down the first base line remains one of the most indelible images in postseason history.
Series Result: The Reds refuse to fold up after Fisk's heroics, winning Game Seven and the series by a 4-3 count.
Why It's Here: Ooh, controversial! But let's face it: Fisk's home run, no matter how dramatic, didn't win the Series, and his team even ended up losing on top of that. If I were ranking these home runs in a vacuum, Fisk might make the top five (though the competition is stiff), but just because it took place on TV doesn't make it better than it was. And if you add in the context, where it wasn't even part of a winning Series, that puts it here.

5. Eddie Mathews
The Situation: Game Four of the 1957 World Series. In their first Series since moving to Milwaukee, the Braves find themselves down two games to one to the defending champion Yankees. In Game Four, Hank Aaron and Frank Torre both homer to stake Warren Spahn to a 4-1 lead after four innings, but Spahn gives it away with three in the ninth and the game goes to extras. The lefty gives up another run in the top of the tenth, but after a John Logan double tied the game for the Braves, Mathews - in only the sixth year of a Hall of Fame career - hit a two-run blast to give Milwaukee the win, evening the Series.
Series Result: Behind deserving MVP Lew Burdette, the Braves win Game Five 1-0 and Game Seven 5-0 to win the Series 4-3.
Why It's Here: It may not be as endlessly replayed as the Fisk home run - largely because it can't be - but Mathews' shot came for a team that ended up winning its Series, even if Burdette was probably the most directly responsible for that. Mathews is also one of only three 500-homer men to join the Series walkoff club.

4. Kirk Gibson
The Situation: Game One of the 1988 World Series. Dennis Eckersley had just started his run as the game's most dominant closer, but he couldn't hold a 4-3 lead here. Pinch-hitter Mike Davis walked with two outs, bringing up a hobbling Gibson, who wasn't even expected to show up in the Series but came on for pinch-hit duty. After Davis stole second unnecessarily, Gibson drove Eckersley's pitch into the right field stands to win the game 5-4, causing Jack Buck to proclaim, "I don't believe what I just saw!"
Series Result: Despite Mark McGwire's shot in Game Three - making 1988 the only Series with multiple walkoffs - the Dodgers waltzed over the A's in five.
Why It's Here: It was just Game One, and it was a Series that the Dodgers cruised in, but you could make the case that Gibson's home run set the tone. It certainly didn't set the tone for Gibson, who didn't make another appearance in any of the remaining four games, but it sure put the A's on the road to ruin. Plus, I mean, I don't believe what I just saw. That alone is good for Top Five.

3. Kirby Puckett
The Situation: Game Six of the 1991 World Series. Setting the stage for a long, dramatic Game Seven, Puckett evened the Series for the Twins. The Braves squeezed out a run in the seventh to tie the game at three, but nothing more happened until the bottom of the eleventh, when Puckett led off with a solo shot off Charlie Liebrandt, spawning another famous Jack Buck call - "And we'll see you tomorrow night!"
Series Result: The Twins won Game Seven in their last at-bat as well, and took the series 4-3.
Why It's Here: Among home runs that did not directly win a Series, Puckett's is the tops. It came about as late as possible, it created a great call, and it led to a Series win for its team.

2. Joe Carter
The Situation: Game Six of the 1993 World Series. The Phillies, down three games to two, lead 6-5 after a five-run seventh inning; they bring out Mitch Williams to start the ninth, hoping to send the Series to a seventh game. The Blue Jays have other ideas. After a Rickey Henderson walk and a Devon White flyout, Paul Molitor singles and Carter goes deep off Williams to win the Jays their second consecutive Series.
Series Result: Well, duh. Jays in six.
Why It's Here: For one thing, it's one of just two walkoffs that was hit with the winning team trailing at the time (Gibson's is the other). For another, it's one of just two home runs to win a World Series and one of just seven to win a playoff series. But how many home runs effectively ended the career of a solid player? Williams had 43 saves in 1993 and 172 between 1988 and 1993 - but after Carter's blast, Wild Thing made just 52 more appearances in three years with three different teams, racking up a 2-7 record and just six saves before he was finally gone from the league after a brief stint with the Royals in 1997. By comparison, Eckersley put up a 0.61 ERA two years after Gibson's home run. It's quite possible that this was the single most damaging hit in the history of baseball. Carter had three more 100-RBI seasons but never returned to the playoffs; this was, as the call went, the biggest home run of his life.

1. Bill Mazeroski
The Situation: Game Seven of the 1960 World Series. In their three wins, the Pirates had won 14-8; the Yankees had won their three by a margin of 38-3. A slugfest in Game Seven didn't seem to benefit Pittsburgh, and trailing 7-4 going into the bottom of the eighth, it might have seemed a long shot. But the Pirates tagged Bobby Shantz and Jim Coates for five runs that inning to take a 9-7 lead, going ahead on a three-run home run by backup catcher Hal Smith. New York tied it back up in the top of the ninth, but Mazeroski, leading off the bottom of the inning, won the game 10-9 by knocking it over the left field wall of Forbes Field - the first man ever to end a postseason series on a home run.
Series Result: Pirates, 4-3.
Why It's Here: You can't deny this one for several reasons. First of all, it was the first home run to end a postseason series and is still one of only two World Series-ending walkoffs. Second, it defeated the Yankees, the AL powerhouse who missed the Series just twice between 1949 and 1964. Third, it brought the Pirates their first Series in 35 years. And fourth, it was Game Seven, the moment of truth for both teams (even if the Blue Jays had lost Game Six, there was another coming). You just can't get any more dramatic than this.