Jon Hamm watched David Freese's Game 6 homer in character as Don Draper
Though his voice narrates the DVD chronicling the 2011 St. Louis Cardinals’ impossible-but-true run to World Series glory, Jon Hamm wasn’t in the stands at Busch Stadium the night of Game 6. He wasn’t at home on the couch or in a sports bar with friends, either.
Hamm was in the exact place where we most readily identify him -– on the set of “Mad Men,” in character as Don Draper.
And so it was a tense and frenetic day of shooting for Hamm, who still recounted the experience with wild-eyed wonder when asked about it before Sunday’s Taco Bell All-Star Legends & Celebrity Softball Game.
“I was watching live in my trailer when we tied it [in the ninth],” Hamm said. “I didn’t see [Josh] Hamilton’s home run in the 10th. Somebody said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but Hamilton hit a two-run shot.’ So as I’m running back to the trailer to watch, I’m updating my phone, saying, ‘We’ve got a man on ... we’ve got two men on. This could happen, this could happen.’ And then I watched it happen live, and I just lost my mind. I literally lost my mind.”
What happened, of course, was David Freese’s historic home run, capping a World Series run for the ages. And more than eight months later, Hamm, a St. Louis native and genuine Cardinals fan (there’s no Hollywood fluff here), is still in awe of it.
“It’s the reason they play 162 games,” he said. “It’s why I think the Wild Card thing is great. Any team that gets into the playoffs has a shot. We had the hardest couple of teams to go through with Milwaukee and Philly and not to mention the Rangers. Those were world class outfits. And they refused to get beat, and they wouldn’t quit. I’ve become friends with a couple guys on that team and, talking to them about that run, they just said, ‘We didn’t want to lose.’ And when you get a whole team that believes that way, it’s funny how they don’t lose.”
Hamm was in an airport lounge at LAX when the Cards put the finishing touches on their title in Game 7, and he once again sprang to his feet in celebration.
“I thought I was the only Cards fan there,” he said, “until I jumped up with both of my hands in the air and I looked up and there was another guy doing the same thing.”
Though he didn’t get to attend the Fall Classic, as he did in 1982, ’85 and ’87, Hamm was asked to do the narration for the DVD. He said he spent three hours in the booth, then asked the engineer to let him just listen to the last 25 minutes of the game audio, to re-live it all over.
During the Series, Hamm wasted no opportunity to talk trash with castmate Jay Ferguson, who plays Stan Rizzo on the show. Here in 2012, he hasn’t been able to talk as much trash, given the Cards’ uneven output, thus far.
“We started hot, then got cold and got banged up,” he said. “It all comes down to pitching, basically. If our young guys can step up and give quality starts and give it over to that bullpen, we’re OK. Lance Lynn? The guy’s been crazy. And we’re putting up runs in bunches. I’ll be interested to see how the second half goes.”
For now, Hamm had his own game to play, as he was participating in the celebrity game for the third time and still in awe of the opportunity to suit up alongside Ozzie Smith.
“I’ve just grown up being a fan of baseball literally my whole life,” he said. “I’ve played my whole life, I still play in LA and it’s just fun, man. It’s fun. These are guys I look up to, and it raises a lot of money. Major League Baseball does a lot of good work for charity, especially in the Midwest where tornadoes and floods have devastated, this crazy, huge organization of Major League Baseball does a lot of good.”
-- Anthony Castrovince