Hey all! So October is just a hop, skip, and a jump away. And that means one thing. Not Comic-Con. Well, yeah I mean Comic-Con is coming and I am quite excited, but that is not the most important thing. The most important thing is the baseball postseason is here. Finally! The 10 "chosen ones" will finally lay it all on the line in order to claim the Commissioner's Trophy, and have championship rings on their fingers for the rest of their lives. If you remember last season, you'll recall that it had quite a fair share of memorable moments. Who could forget the classic postseason-opening contest, the epic seesaw affair between the Oakland Athletics and Kansas City Royals, capped by Salvador Perez's 12th inning walk-off single? Or 2014 pinch hitting king/postseason clutchmeister Delmon Young exploiting Detroit's faulty bullpen? Want to play two games in one day...technically? Hey, just like Russ Hodges proclaimed in 1954, the Giants win the pennant! They'd go on to win it all, but not without making our hearts pound out about a million miles an hour for a few seconds. Yeah last season's postseason was awesome, and I'm having way too much fun here today writing about it.

So now back to work. And thankfully my assignment today is to make you aware of some of baseball's potentially forgotten postseason heroics. Namely of the home run variety. There have been exactly 48 walk-off home runs in postseason play, 50 if you want to include Bobby Thomson's classic moonshot to clinch the 1951 pennant in the tiebreaker game, and Robin Ventura's "Grand Slam Single." But some playoff home runs may have fallen by the wayside, and we can't allow that! So for your reading pleasure, let's look back at some of baseball's lesser-remembered postseason walk off bombs, in order to get you hyped up (as if you're not already) for the playoffs! Links included below!

1. Jeff Kent,  2004 NLCS  Game 5 - Only 4 second baseman have walk-off home runs in baseball history. One was hit by Kolten Wong last season, one was hit by Alfonso Soriano in 2001, and one was the immortal Bill Mazeroski home run to win the 1960 World Series. And then, there was Houston's Jeff Kent in 2004. Now when you think of the 2004 postseason, odds are the first thing you'll think of is the Boston Red Sox meteoric rise from the ashes in the ALCS against the Yankees, before trouncing St, Louis in the World Series to, as they say, "break the curse". But honestly, the 2004 NLCS between the Astros and the Cardinals was pretty dog gone awesome too! No one was more impressive than Houston's Carlos Beltran that entire postseason, socking 8 home runs over 12 games played. While the Red Sox may have been the stars of the '04 postseason, Beltran and the NLCS as a whole, shouldn't be forgotten. Jeff Kent in Game 5 is another man who hit a huge home run for the 'Stros in that series, breaking a scoreless tie in the bottom of the 9th to give the Astros a 3-2 series edge. Unfortunately Jim Edmonds had a walk off home run in Game 6 to tie the series, which St. Louis would ultimately win the next day. It was the first and only time in baseball history that back-to-back playoff games ended via the walk off home run. 

2. Tony Pena, 1995 ALDS, Game 1 - It had been a long time coming for the Cleveland Indians. The last time they saw postseason play before 1995 was in 1954, when the Tribe was swept in the World Series. 41 seasons on the sidelines? Yikes! And of course, Mother Nature had to delay Cleveland's reintroduction to October baseball, with a nice little 39 minute rain delay at the start of the ALDS's opening contest between Cleveland and the Boston Red Sox. When that was all said and done, Game 1 at "The Jake" finally got underway, and it was a classic. Tied at 3 in the 11th, Boston's Tim Naehring hit a solo home run to give them a 1-run lead going into the bottom half of the frame. That wouldn't hold up, as Cleveland's Albert Belle led off that half with a home run of his own, knotting the score up once again. Game 1 remained tied at 4 until 38-year old (!!) Tony Pena, who only entered the game in the 11th as a defensive replacement, hit a 3-0 pitch (!!!!) with two outs over the left field wall, giving Cleveland a reason to let out all of that pent-up frustration over that 41-year drought!

3. Tommy Henrich, 1949 World Series, Game 1 -  The World Series really began in the late 19th century, when seven of them were played between the  respective champions of the National League and the American Association. The modern World Series began in 1903, skipped in 1904 due to John McGraw's refusal to acknowledge the AL as a legitimate league, then continued on again in 1905. Up until 1949, no one had ever ended a World Series game via the walk-off home run. And then the '49 Fall Classic between the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers happened. Game 1 of the Series was an absolute nailbiter, with Brooklyn's Don Newcombe and New York's "Superchief" Allie Reynolds matching one another's zeroes until the 9th inning. Reynolds retired the Dodgers 1-2-3 in the top of the 9th, but in the bottom half, Newcombe surrendered a leadoff home run to Tommy Henrich on the first pitch of the inning, and the Yankees took the opening contest by a final score of 1-0. It was the first walk off home run in postseason history. While video footage of that blast isn't available online, we do have footage of another classic World Series moment that Henrich was involved in. It's the infamous 1941 Mickey Owen dropped third strike play, and I insist if you haven't heard of it before to watch this clip, complete with commentary from Henrich himself.

4. Dusty Rhodes, 1954 World Series, Game 1 - When it comes to the 1954 World Series, played by the New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians, it's probably as a whole best remembered for the only World Series Willie Mays won in his illustrious career. It's also the only one Leo Durocher won in his 24-year managerial career. And when it comes to just Game 1 alone, thoughts go straight to the impossible over-the-shoulder catch Mays made with his back to home plate, robbing Vic Wertz of extra bases, then firing the ball back to the infield quickly once the out was recorded. It's arguably the greatest play ever made in baseball history, especially when considering the circumstances at the time (game tied 2-2 in the 10th in the opening game of a World Series). And while that is rightfully so, another historic moment also took place in this game, often overshadowed due to Mays' catch. In the bottom of the 8th with the score still tied at 2, pinch hitter Dusty Rhodes came to the plate with two on, and hit an extremely short home run off of Bob Lemon, barely clearing the right field wall at the Polo Grounds, which was 258 feet away from home plate. This was the second walk off home run in postseason history, following Henrich's, and the first in National League history.

5. Alan Ashby, 1981 NLDS, Game 1 - Man, a lot of Game 1 walk off shots! Anyway, let's circle on back to the Astros. So do you know how the very first Division Series came about in 1981? Well, that season was interrupted due to a strike on account of the owners being unable to agree on proper compensation for their team when they lost a free agent to another club. By the time things were rectified, roughly 2 months of the season were lost. The solution put forward by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and the owners as far as the postseason went, was that the season would be split into two. The four divisions would each boast a first half winner, and a second half winner. So the formerly best-of-4 format for the first time became a best-of-8. This was completely flawed by the way since the two teams in the National League who finished with the best overall records, the Cardinals in the East and the Reds in the West, both missed the playoffs since neither finished the pre-strike or post-strike period at the top of their division, but that's a story you can read more about in Split Season: 1981. As for the first ever Division Series game, it took place on October 6th between the NL West's first half winner the LA Dodgers, and the NL West's second half winner, the Houston Astros. Got all that? Unnecessarily complicated I know. Anyway, Game 1 of this NLDS was a pitchers duel between LA's Fernando Valenzuela and Houston's Nolan Ryan. The two clubs would be locked in a 1-1 tie until the bottom of the 9th, when Astros backstop Alan Ashby hit a walk-off 2-run home run. Houston would also win Game 2 on a walk-off single by Denny Walling, though LA would win the next 3 games in the best-of-5 Division Series, their first hurdle cleared en route to what would end up being their 5th World Series title.

To check out more famous postseason home runs hit over the years, check out this DVD!