The pitchers' duel between Roy Halladay and Chris Carpenter in Game 5 of the National League Division Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and the St. Louis Cardinals was one of the high points of a thrilling MLB postseason. Anyone who watched that game likely remembers three key items.
- Carpenter twirled a complete-game, three-hit shutout for the win.
- Ryan Howard was injured while making the game's final out.
- Halladay and Carpenter are very close friends and had an exotic fishing trip planned for the offseason.
While the first two items on this list certainly generated much of the drama of the evening, it was the third that was discussed so incessantly by TBS announcers Dick Stockton, Ron Darling and John Smoltz that a baseball blogger on Twitter suggsted making a drinking game out of all the mentions. However, it appears that this dynamic pitching duo may have saved a man's life during that fishing trip to the Amazon.
According to Skeet Reese, the 2007 Bassmaster Angler of the Year and the 2009 Bassmaster Classic Champion, that's sort of what happened. Earlier this month, Reese shared a wild tale from that fishing excursion deep into the jungles of South America in which the All-Star pitchers -- who were part of a larger group that also included Reese and former closer B.J. Ryan -- came across a local man shortly after a death-defying battle with an anaconda. The fishing party discovered the bare naked man perched in a tree near the river near a battered canoe.
The snake apparently bit him on the ass but he was able to free himself before the snake wrapped him up. Instead the snake wrapped around his motor on the back of his little 14 foot dugout canoe and tore it off the back of his boat. Doc and I helped him gather his gear and flip the boat back over and then towed him home. You could definitely see the bite mark on his ass, but he was able to fight it off; amazing.
Presumably, Blue Jays fans doubt that Ryan would have been able to make the save without the other two aces around. Of course, this local Amazonian fisherman had done the hardest part himself: fighting off the anaconda. It's unclear if the fisherman was completely stranded when the pitching party happened upon him or how weakened he was from the bite and the struggle with the snake. While anacondas are not venomous snakes the constrictors are lethal. Just ask this guy's outboard motor.
WATCH: How To Survive An Anaconda Bite