ANAHEIM, Calif. -- These are the games that don't end with the 27th out. These are the games that keep springing back to life, years after they're over. These are the games that remind us that there's no such word in sports as "impossible."

It shouldn't be possible for the Anaheim Angels to be waking up Sunday morning with one more World Series game to play. But they are.

It shouldn't be possible to go into the seventh inning of the sixth game of the World Series five runs behind, your season nine outs from over, and somehow win. But the Angels did.

	“	This game was unbelievable. This was definitely something to tell your kids and grandkids about, about how you made this comeback. This was the one I'll remember above all the games this whole season. Making this type of comeback in a World Series atmosphere, when you're facing elimination, is really special. ”
		— David Eckstein, Angels shortstop, on Game 6

It shouldn't be possible to send 22 hitters to the plate over the first 6 1/3 innings and get two hits -- one an infield single, the other a broken-bat thunker where the bat travels almost as far as the ball -- and then have your next 10 hitters get eight hits. But the Angels did that, too.

If you witnessed all of that, you know the Angels really did conjure up a miracle to beat the Giants, 6-5, Saturday night in an epic Game 6 of the World Series.

And somewhere in there -- between the Barry Bonds homer that seemed to carry a World Series trophy on its flight and the Troy Glaus double that changed everything -- this World Series went from being merely fun to something bigger, something better, something classic.

All on the strength of the most breathtaking comeback from the edge of winter in the history of this sport. No team has ever been five runs behind in a World Series game that could have ended its season and somehow won. We repeat: No team. Let alone a team down to its final eight outs.

Even the '86 Mets weren't in that bad shape. Even Carlton Fisk didn't have to hit a five-run homer to save the Red Sox in 1975. Even the 1960 Pirates and the 1985 Royals and the 2001 Diamondbacks never found themselves in the kind of mess the Angels found themselves in Saturday night. But no team had ever gone from 41 games out of first place one year to the World Series the next, either. So whatever that thing is that these Angels have inside them, wherever it comes from, whatever power truly travels from the vertical leap of the Rally Monkey to the field where they weave their magic, it has given this team a place now in the eternal lore of October -- whether it wins Game 7 Sunday or not.

"This," said Angels hitting coach Mickey Hatcher, "was the best game I've ever been a part of."

We need to pause here to remind you that in 1988, Hatcher was a Dodger. Which means he was in the park the night Kirk Gibson hit a World Series homer that is still traveling.

"People talk about the Gibson game," Hatcher said. "But that was Game 1. There were still four games left to play. This was winner-go-home. I don't care what happens here tomorrow. This is the game they'll always be reminded about for the rest of their lives. And it's typical of what this team is all about."

This was a team that had spun 43 come-from-behind wins in the regular season and six more in the postseason. So we know this is a bunch of people who have never seen a mountain they thought was too tall.

But any resemblance between May 29 in Kansas City and Oct. 26 in the World Series is purely hallucinatory. This was the comeback, this was the game that will define this team forever.

"In some way, every single one of these games in this World Series was just amazing," said David Eckstein. "But this game was unbelievable. This was definitely something to tell your kids and grandkids about, about how you made this comeback. This was the one I'll remember above all the games this whole season.

"Making this type of comeback in a World Series atmosphere, when you're facing elimination, is really special. There's no other way to describe it. Every other game we've played this year, we knew there was a tomorrow. Today we didn't know that. So to respond this way was unbelievable."

How could they have not known they were going to lose when Shawon Dunston -- Shawon Dunston -- lofted a two-run home run into the first row in left field? Shawon Dunston, a man who had hit his last home run more than six months ago (on April 14).

How could they not have known they were going to lose when Bonds pummeled a frightening home run off their secret weapon, Francisco Rodriguez, in the sixth inning? It was Bonds' fourth home run of this World Series, his eighth home run of this postseason. And it had the look, the feel of a career-defining home run, roaring down an exit ramp in the right-field stands to give the Giants a 4-0 lead.

And if that didn't do it, how could these Angels not have known they were going to lose when a monstrous center-field shot by Glaus in the fifth settled into Kenny Lofton's glove in the only section of Edison Field where it wouldn't have been a home run?

And how could they possibly have thought they still had a chance when Jeff Kent pumped his fist in triumph after the RBI single that made it 5-0 in the seventh -- to make it 15 unanswered runs by the Giants over the last two games?

"It goes through your mind," Tim Salmon would admit afterward. "That's just human nature. When they got that fifth run there, the way Russ Ortiz was pitching, you can't help but think, 'This game isn't shaping up the way you'd like it to.' But the next thing you knew ..."

Yeah, the next thing you knew, Glaus and Brad Fullmer had singled off Ortiz with one out in the seventh. The next thing you knew, out marched Dusty Baker to wave for his trusty bullpen, as Edison Field began to tremble with the first glimmer of hope.

The next thing you knew, Felix Rodriguez -- a man who had given up just three runs and six hits in the last six weeks -- was locked in a momentous duel with Scott Spiezio that may well be looked upon as the turning point of this World Series.

On it went, through eight oxygen-sucking pitches. Spiezio fouled off a 1-and-2 fastball. And then a 2-and-2 fastball, clocked at 97 mph. And then it was 3 and 2, as the ballpark rattled and the Rally Monkey danced and the ThunderStix pounded.

How long did this at-bat last? Three minutes? Five minutes? Ten minutes? Thirty minutes? Even Spiezio -- a man who later called it "the biggest at-bat I've had in my life" -- had no idea.

"Probably the umpires were mad at me because I was taking so long up there," he laughed. "But at moments like that, I try not to think about time -- or anything that would distract me."

Rodriguez -- the first man in 22 years to pitch in every one of the first six games of a World Series -- whooshed up one more fastball. But this one, he got it down and in. Spiezio golfed it toward the right-field corner.

"It seemed like it hung up there for half an hour," Spiezio said. "I was running down to first, praying, 'Please, let it go out.' I saw (Reggie) Sanders out there, running toward the fence. I didn't know if it was going to make it or not."

On the mound, Rodriguez was doing a little praying of his own.

"I saw Reggie going back," Rodriguez said. "And I thought, 'Maybe he has a chance.' "

But finally, Sanders banged into the fence. The baseball dropped just beyond his grasp, in just about the shallowest part of the park. A 5-0 game was suddenly a 5-3 game. And at that instant, what once seemed impossible didn't feel so impossible anymore.

Spiezio floated around the bases trying to comprehend what he'd done. Somewhere on the journey, he became aware of this sound all around him -- this thunderclap of elation he had just evoked in his teammates and the 44,000 folks in red who had refused to jump off of this wild ride.

"It was so loud," Spiezio said, "it was like a cannon shot or something."

And to Rodriguez -- still standing next to the mound, shaking his head -- it felt like the cannonball had traveled right through his gut. He knew this was not a home run in many ballparks -- certainly not the one the Giants play in. But a lot of good that did him.

"When you see it in the paper tomorrow," Rodriguez said, "it's not going to say, 'It wouldn't be a home run in San Francisco.' It's still a home run."

It wasn't a home run that won this game. But it sure was a home run that changed this game.

"I knew then," Spiezio said, "we had a chance."

But the Giants' bullpen has been so good, it wasn't a great chance. Scott Eyre was still out there. He hadn't allowed an earned run the whole postseason. Tim Worrell was still out there. He'd ripped off seven straight scoreless October appearances. Robb Nen was still out there. He'd saved seven games this postseason and blown none.

	“	It was the biggest win in all our careers. But I'll take it in later, because (Sunday), it won't mean anything. Neither of these teams ever quit. So the way this thing's been going, it will probably come down to the ninth inning (Sunday). ”
		— Troy Percival, Angels pitcher

"The only thought we had out in the bullpen," Worrell said, "was, 'Time to shut the door.' We've done it this way -- Felix to me to Robby -- for two-thirds of the season now."

But this night was not going to be like all those other nights. Three pitches into the bottom of the eighth, Worrell left a changeup in the middle of the plate. Darin Erstad crunched it out to right. And amazingly, it was now 5-4.

"He doesn't do that very often," Erstad said of Worrell. "But he did it tonight. Got to take advantage of it."

But still the Giants led, 5-4. Worrell took a big gulp of air and told himself, "OK, it's a one-run game. We've done that enough times."

By then, though, a one-run lead looked smaller than a mosquito, even in the eighth inning of the sixth game of the World Series. So when Tim Salmon singled, and then Garret Anderson singled, and then Barry Bonds took a peek at pinch-runner Chone Figgins and overran the ball, and then Anderson chugged into second, your eardrums ached.

Baker came to the mound again and pointed to Nen. The tying run was on third. The winning run was on second. There were six outs still to get. Over the last six seasons, Nen owned exactly one six-out save (this July 6, in Arizona). The odds he'd convert this one were tinier than Darren Baker.

"That's a tough job there," said the closer on the other side, Troy Percival. "Basically, he's got to strike out the first two guys or he's going to give up the tying run. That's a situation most people are not going to get out of."

And Nen couldn't, either. He hung a 2-and-1 slider to Glaus, who went up there thinking, "Hit a ground ball," and wound up smoking one up the freeway in left-center for a two-run double.

Percival did the rest, finishing a 1-2-3 ninth with a 96-mph inferno that punched out Rich Aurilia for the final out. And it was time for all of us to do our best to digest what we'd just seen.

For the Giants, this game hurt like no other loss could ever hurt. But they couldn't allow themselves to feel that hurt -- not now.

"Right now," said Worrell, who heroically stood at his locker forever and dealt with a thousand painful questions, "we have to look at it like we've just lost any other game, like it was no different from the regular season. But tomorrow, depending on how it turns out, we might look back on this and say, 'Wow. We came so close.' But not right now. This is not the time for that."

The Angels, on the other hand, were looking at a tidal wave it was tough not to ride.

"We all knew we were in a great game out there," said Spiezio, who has gone 11 for 15 (.733) with runners in scoring position this postseason, good for a record-tying 19 RBIs. "We all realized some big things were going on, some huge at-bats. ... That's an awesome feeling, man. That's the most excited I've ever been from any comeback win. That's the most special game, the most special comeback I've ever been a part of. It was definitely a different feeling from any other game I've ever played."

But when they wake up Sunday morning, all it will mean is that they have to come back and do it again.

"It was the biggest win in all our careers," Percival said. "But I'll take it in later, because tomorrow, it won't mean anything. Neither of these teams ever quit. So the way this thing's been going, it will probably come down to the ninth inning tomorrow."

No visiting team has won a Game 7 of a World Series since the 1979 Pirates. But come Sunday night, that won't mean anything, either. So press the pause button on your Game 6 memories -- because the only thing that can possibly be better than this game is the incomparable drama of a Game 7 adventure in the land of the Rally Monkey.

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.