SAN FRANCISCO -- The ball went screaming toward the centerfield seats, you could almost hear the seams crying, and as early signs go, this was like waking up to a buzzard outside your window. Justin Verlander, on an 0-2 count to Pablo Sandoval, had just brought a pitch that would skin the hair off an alley cat, a fastball high and in, 95 m.p.h.

You and me, we don't think about swinging at such a missile; we think about ducking, diving, maybe crying. Sandoval, who is not quite 6 feet tall, yet tips the scales at close to 300 pounds, is not you or me. The slugger with two-toned hair who has become an RBI machine in San Francisco's postseason -- and whose bat was kissed by the gods Wednesday night -- got wood on that pitch and turned it around in a hurry. It landed in the crowd. And the Giants -- like that scene in "The Untouchables" when the bad guys kill their first G-man and leave him in an elevator -- hung a warning sign on the Tigers in the very first inning of this 2012 World Series:

"Touchable."
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Mitch Albom Column