It was a tense situation at Busch Stadium on Wednesday night. The Royals and Cardinals were playing a key Interleague series for both teams, but especially the Cardinals, who entered the game just two and a half games back of the Cubs in the competitive NL Central. 
 
 Royals reliever Peter Moylan was clinging precariously to a 5-4 lead in the bottom of the sixth. Two men were down, but the Cardinals had the bases loaded for Yadier Molina. Moylan delivered a pitch for a ball, and then, out of nowhere, a tiny cat stormed onto the field. 
 
 Its first stop was saying hello to center fielder Lorenzo Cain: 
 
 What a kind kitty! 
 
 Cardinals manager Mike Matheny was caught off guard by the team's new guest. "I didn't see anything until all of the noise," he said to MLB.com's Alaina Getzenberg. "I thought there was a streaker on the field to be honest, but I was happy it was a cat." 
 
 A stadium employee did eventually have to track the feline down, but it wasn't ready to go: 
 
 It did not take well to its ballgame experience being cut short, scratching and biting at the poor guy as he ran off the field with it. Chances are, it's a descendent of the cat that wreaked similar havoc on a Kingdome employee in Seattle back in the day: 
 
 The levity was broken on the very next pitch, when Molina crushed a game-changing grand slam to put the Cardinals ahead: 
 
 The 8-5 lead held, and the Cardinals won. They leapfrogged the Brewers to jump into second place in the NL Central, a mere game and a half behind the Cubs. "I'm not a cat person, but I sure like that one," Matheny joked after the game. 
 
 It wasn't be the first time that the Cardinals have received inspiration from the animal kingdom, either, having benefited from the "Rally Squirrel" in the 2011 NLDS. Molina remembered. "It was the catcher that told me like, 'You haven't seen something like that before,'" he said. "I said 'Not with a cat, but a squirrel, yes.'" 
 
 Molina often goes by the nickname "Yadi," which he'll wear on his jersey during Players Weekend on Aug. 25-27. So, in that vein, just call the Cardinals' new feline friend "Yadi the Rally Cat." ||||| There have and will always be games in sports that leave fans in disbelief. Great comebacks that can only be described as miracles. But what the St. Louis Cardinals' organization has done over the last two seasons will likely stand alone as one of the most clutch events that sports fans will ever see. 
 
 The Cardinals needed a miraculous September rally just to make the playoffs on the final day of the regular season last year. They went on to stun the Phillies in a dramatic five-game NLDS and then knocked off the Brewers in six games in the NLCS. St. Louis would eventually find themselves facing the Texas Rangers in the World Series. 
 
 The Rangers, hungry for a title after coming up short in the 2010 Fall Classic, grabbed a 3-2 series lead over the Redbirds. They took a 7-5 lead into the ninth inning of Game 6 and appeared primed to win their franchise's first championship. 
 
 Not so fast. 
 
 Down to their final strike, the Cardinals rallied in the ninth and tied the game on a two-run triple by St. Louis third baseman David Freese. The tie did not last for long. In the 10th inning, Josh Hamilton hit a two-run bomb to put Texas back on top 9-7. 
 
 It appeared that time had finally run out on the Cardiac Cardinals. 
 
 Again though, not so fast. 
 
 St. Louis was again pushed to their final strike of the season when Lance Berkman came up with a huge game-tying single to make it 9-9 in the 10th inning. Two innings later, David Freese hit a moonshot over the center field grass to send the series to a Game 7. 
 
 Rob Carr/Getty Images 
 
 The Cardinals had little trouble in Game 7, putting the Rangers away 6-2 to win the franchise's 11th World Series title. 
 
 Fast forward now to this year. 
 
 Without Albert Pujols, Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan, the defending World Series champions were doubted from the start. It simply seemed like the losses of these three key figures would be too great for one team to overcome, especially a team who had just come off a championship run. 
 
 This year's installment of the St. Louis Cardinals did not seem too concerned though. They snuck into the playoffs on the second to last day of the regular season, and put themselves right back in position to defend their 2011 title. 
 
 After beating Atlanta in a single elimination wild-card game, St. Louis squared off against Washington. The series was hard fought throughout, but in Game 5, the Nats jumped all over starter Adam Wainwright and took a 6-0 lead after just three innings. 
 
 Things once again looked bad for St. Louis. No team in MLB history had ever come back from more than four runs down in a final decisive game of a playoff series. 
 
 Don't tell that to the Cardinals though. 
 
 The Redbirds continued to chip away at the lead. They added one run in the fourth, two in the fifth, one in the seventh and one in the eighth, cutting the score to 6-5. But Washington struck for an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth, all but putting an end to St. Louis' season. 
 
 Again, not so fast. 
 
 Carlos Beltran led off the ninth with a long fly that fell just beyond the reach of the speedy Bryce Harper in center field. Two batters later, Beltran was standing on third with the Cardinals one out away from seeing their repeat chances dashed. Nationals closer Drew Storen proceeded to put his team within one strike on back-to-back occasions, but Yadier Molina and David Freese drew consecutive walks to load the bases. 
 
 Then, with all the great hitters that the powerful St. Louis lineup had, the game came down to Daniel Descalso. Descalso, a career .245 hitter, went deep on a solo shot in the eighth, but he might very well be the last guy you would want to have at the plate in this situation. 
 
 On the first pitch he saw, Descalso ripped a ball up the middle that could not be fielded cleanly by the Nationals, and all the sudden they had done it again. St. Louis had pulled off another miracle. Next up was Pete Kozma, and with two strikes he hit a single down the right field line to give the Cardinals the lead. 
 
 Jason Motte closed the door for the Redbirds in the bottom half of the inning, and just like that the Nationals were done and St. Louis was about to have a happy flight to San Francisco. 
 
 Over the last two seasons, the Cardinals have been pushed to their final strike four times. Four times they were pushed to the brink of elimination, and four times they said not so fast. 
 
 Surely there will be a time when St. Louis fails to get it done. Whether it be this year, next year or a decade from now, they will eventually have strike three pass one of their hitters and the lights will be shut off for the winter at the beautiful stadium known to Cardinal Nation as Baseball Heaven. 
 
 But for now, their dream of winning a 12th championship lives on, and the St. Louis Cardinals have the baseball world once again buzzing about this team from the Midwest who simply refuses to let their postseason hopes die. ||||| Brad Joseph says the governor made contact with him with his knee and asked if he wanted to 'do something' and 'start something' 
 
 New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie paused at Sunday's match-up between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Chicago Cubs to get in a fan's face and call him a "big shot" after being heckled. 
 
 "I appreciate that," the fan, Brad Joseph, is heard replying in video shared by WISN 12 NEWS reporter Ben Hutchison. 
 
 Joseph, a relative of Hutchison's, later explained what led up to the confrontation: 
 
 
 
 "When he initially was going up the stairs I yelled his name. He was already quite a bit past me, and 30 feet away I yelled his name and told him that he sucked. ... I called him a hypocrite because I thought it needed to be said. He then turned around and walked all the way back towards me and got up in my face for what seemed like a long time, but was probably only about 30 seconds or a minute." 
 
 
 
 Joseph said the former presidential candidate made contact with him with his knee and asked if he wanted to "do something" and "start something." 
 
 "(He) was yelling at me. First he told me, 'Why don't you have another beer?' which I thought was a decent come back, and I thought that was kind of funny," said Joseph. "Then he started calling me a tough guy." 
 
 Hutchison began recording video at the end of the confrontation. 
 
 Despite having Christie just inches from his face, Joseph said he remained calm. 
 
 "He is a public official and this is America and I think we have the right to say what you believe as long as it’s not crude or profane," Joseph said. 
 
 An attempt to reach Christie's office for comment was unsuccessful by late Sunday. 
 
 Christie, whose son works for the Milwaukee Brewers, received boos from fans about two weeks ago after catching a foul ball at a game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Mets. 
 
 The Cubs won Sunday's game, 4-2. 
 
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– The Cardinals needed help. They got "Rally Cat"—and now baseball has a new hero and meme. MLB.com explains: The St. Louis Cardinals trailed the Kansas City Royals 5-4 in the bottom of the sixth in a crucial playoff-race game Wednesday, but they had the bases loaded. Let Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch set the stage further: "There for a brief moment, before rally cat came into their lives, Yadier Molina paused at the plate, stood tall, and pointed his bat toward left field, appearing as if he were calling his shot." As it turns out, he was pointing to a cat in the outfield that went on to interrupt the game for a few entertaining minutes. When the game resumed, Molina hit a grand slam on the very next pitch, and the lead held for a St. Louis victory. "I'm not a cat person, but I sure like that one," Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said after the game. The MLB site has video of the cat (immediately dubbed "Rally Cat" in the game's broadcast) scampering around and either biting or scratching the St. Louis field crew member who finally corralled it. Others are posting YouTube clips. It's not clear whether the cat is a stray, but if so it would surely find a home quickly given the fans' reaction. The incident calls to mind a similar one involving a squirrel in the 2011 playoffs. In fact, as the Post-Dispatch notes, the Cards etched a silhouette of "Rally Squirrel" on their championship rings that year.