Until this weekend, I really never thought that anything would top this game. But I was wrong.
What can one say about a game in which the following occurred?:

The Stros came back from a 6-1 deficit with only four outs left in the game.
Superstar Lance Berkman lighting a fuse to the Minute Maid Park crowd that exploded when he hit a grand salami — the second one in the game, following the Braves’ Adam LaRoche‘s 3rd inning bomb — to bring the Stros improbably within a run of the lead in the bottom of the 8th inning:
With the Stros within an out of returning to Atlanta for a Game 5 of the series, light-hitting Brad Ausmus — probably the weakest hitting regular National League player over the past five years — ripped a line drive yak to deep left-center (only his fourth home run of the season) that landed about an inch above the yellow home-run line and just a couple of inches beyond the Braves centerfielder Andruw Jones‘ outstretched glove;
Rookie Luke Scott — who was the Stros’ hottest hitter coming out of spring training but who eventually was farmed back to AAA Round Rock for another season of minor league training — coaxing a key walk during the 8th inning rally and then coming within inches of winning the game in the 10th with his own walk-off yak;
The Stros using all of their position players so that burly backup catcher Raul Chavez ended up playing first base;
Every available pitcher in the Stros’ bullpen pitching a total of 13 and 2rds innings and giving up just one run;
Dan Wheeler pitching three innings of masterful relief — his longest stint of the season — almost on fumes by the end the 15th inning;

As the last Stros pitcher available, 43 year-old Roger Clemens taking hold of his exhausted team and pulling them across the finish line with incredibly unyielding will and three innings of one hit relief pitching; and
25 year-old Chris Burke — a potentially solid National League regular player who has accepted a part-time role on the club while a future Hall of Famer plays out his string at Burke’s primary position — pounding his first walk-off tater of his young career to end the longest Major League Baseball playoff game in history.

Remarkably, Sunday’s already legendary game overshadowed an excellent Saturday night game before the biggest crowd in the history of Minute Maid Park in which Roy O held the Braves at bay until the Stros exploded for four runs against the Braves’ bullpen in the bottom of the 7th to put the game away.
So, the Stros have now vanquished the Braves in the playoffs for the second straight season, at least partially removing some of the sting of losing Atlanta three straight times in the playoffs earlier during the Stros’ Biggio-Bagwell era. This series was an odd one that turned out to be much higher scoring than anticipated, although the clubs ended up having a couple of close, low-scoring affairs in their final two games of the series — they just decided to count those two games as one legendary, 18-inning game to close out the series.
Now, what does this club do for an encore? It’s off to St. Louis again for a rematch of last season’s gut-wrenching National League Championship Series with the Cardinals in which the Stros came within a game of their first World Series. The first game will likely be on Wednesday night with the Stros’ Andy Pettitte facing Redbirds’ ace, Chris Carpenter. I will post a more thorough analysis of the Stros-Cards series later in the week.
Like, after I catch my breath!