Let me make a confession. I am a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. Let me make another confession. I admit to being a fair weather fan this year. With the way they played the last half of the season, I remarked that I almost hope they don’t make the playoffs, because if they don’t, I can quit caring and waiting for the inevitable (or so I thought) early elimination of this team. One of my sons reminded me that I didn’t want that to happen because it would rank as one of the biggest collapses in major league history. He, of course, was right so I just became silent about the whole thing. This team won only 83 games, for Christ’s sake. It bore no resemblance to the powerful St. Louis teams of the past two years (both 100 win seasons or better). This year’s team had two losing streaks of eight games each and another streak of seven games and were still in first place after each losing streak. No team in history has had more than one losing streak of eight games in a year and remained in first place at the end of such streak. St. Louis could have had three such streaks this year but they managed to break the last one at seven games. If they had lost the eighth, they still would have had a half game lead. It was conventional wisdom that the NL Central was such a bad division that no one coming out of that division would ever make an impression in the playoffs. St. Louis had to back into the division championship by virtue of the Astros losing to the Braves on the last day of the season. Had the Astros won, the Cardinals would have had to play a make up game with the San Francisco Giants on the next day and if the Cardinals had lost that, they would have had to play a tie breaker with the Astros. Not the stuff of which World Series champions are made. However, in spite of all that mediocrity, the Cardinals beat the Padres, Mets and Tigers in playoff series to emerge as champions. They were heavy underdogs in each but somehow managed to persevere in each. I still don’t believe it and would not say or write anything about it until it was over. Maybe it is safe to do so now.
Let me tell you why I am a Cardinal fan. As you know, I’m an old guy. I was raised in a very rural setting. My parent’s were farmers and among their farming ventures was the running of a dairy farm in rural Arkansas. The cows had a new barn with refrigerated water to keep the milk from spoiling, hot water to sterilize the equipment, modern milking machines and scientifically balanced diets. We had cold water piped to the back porch of the house (not inside), no indoor bathroom, no telephone, no television, bedrooms that were not heated, wood heat in a couple of the rooms of the house and Mom cooked on a wood stove. We walked to the outhouse and bathed in a washtub in the kitchen in the winter and out in the backyard in summer, when we didn’t bathe in the creek in the swimming hole at the end of the day. We were poor and we were rural, but I didn’t know it and I didn’t suffer for it. My parents were educated and progressive (at least for that part of the world) and made sure that I would get an education. After the work day was done in the summer, we generally congregated on the front porch. We read, we talked, we listened to the sounds of the country night and we listened to the one radio that we had. We had one station that we could receive with any kind of clarity on a consistent basis. It was KWHN in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. They carried Cardinal baseball. At that time, the Cardinals were the most westerly located major league baseball team. The Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, the Giants were still in New York and Kansas City didn’t have a team yet. My Dad and I and sometimes my Mom, would spend most summer nights listening to the Cardinals play. At that time, Harry Caray was their announcer. He had not yet been involved in a dangerous triangle with one of the Busch boys and his wife and had not yet become the much imitated and parodied joke that he would become later in Chicago. He was the sound track of my summer nights. At some point, his sidekick became Jack Buck. When Harry left, I worried that Jack could not do the Cardinals justice. How wrong I was.
I lived and breathed Cardinal baseball. It was an imprimatur that has not been dulled and will not ever be erased. Stan Musial, Ken Boyer, Don Blasingame, Red Schoendist, Curt Flood, Wally Moon and others were an integral part of my childhood. I followed their exploits like they were super heroes. One of the few extravagances that I was allowed was a Cardinal yearbook. Ordered every year and eagerly awaited in the mail, it had an outline of every major league park, the records of all the clubs, major league baseball records and information on the Cardinal players. I devoured its contents and kept it by the radio for quick and easy reference.
I did not get to see my first Cardinal game in person until I was a senior in high school. My girlfriend’s parents invited me to accompany them to St. Louis to a game. Although less than 500 miles, it took us two days to make the trip. I slept on a cot outside in a park somewhere in Missouri in route and loved every bit of it. At that time, the Cardinals still played in Sportsman Park and standing room only tickets were all we could get. I could only see part of the field from where we ended up standing and Sandy Koufax and the Dodgers shut out the Cardinals 1-0. It was great even if the Cards lost.
I inflicted my feelings for the Cardinals on my children. I recall a twi-night double header in St. Louis with the Dodgers that got started late because of rain and then the first game went into extra innings. My boys toughed it out and my very young daughter slept on bleacher seats until 3 am. The Cardinals swept both. Nothing else mattered. My boys and even my daughter carry on the passion until this day. My sons could only say “Holy Crap, this might happen” as the Cardinals got closer and closer to the championship. I called them both as the fifth game came to a conclusion and the Cardinals were dog piling on the field. All we could do was shout incoherently at each other. It was great.
There have also been times in my life when my relationship with my children was not as good as I wished it could be. Becoming involved in a divorce with their mother will sometimes cause that. However, even when we couldn’t talk about other things, we could always talk about the Cardinals. They have been a constant in my life. Much like the speech about baseball that James Earl Jones gives in “A Field of Dreams”. Thank you, Cards. Thank you kids. I love you.
Let me tell you why I am a Cardinal fan. As you know, I’m an old guy. I was raised in a very rural setting. My parent’s were farmers and among their farming ventures was the running of a dairy farm in rural Arkansas. The cows had a new barn with refrigerated water to keep the milk from spoiling, hot water to sterilize the equipment, modern milking machines and scientifically balanced diets. We had cold water piped to the back porch of the house (not inside), no indoor bathroom, no telephone, no television, bedrooms that were not heated, wood heat in a couple of the rooms of the house and Mom cooked on a wood stove. We walked to the outhouse and bathed in a washtub in the kitchen in the winter and out in the backyard in summer, when we didn’t bathe in the creek in the swimming hole at the end of the day. We were poor and we were rural, but I didn’t know it and I didn’t suffer for it. My parents were educated and progressive (at least for that part of the world) and made sure that I would get an education. After the work day was done in the summer, we generally congregated on the front porch. We read, we talked, we listened to the sounds of the country night and we listened to the one radio that we had. We had one station that we could receive with any kind of clarity on a consistent basis. It was KWHN in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. They carried Cardinal baseball. At that time, the Cardinals were the most westerly located major league baseball team. The Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, the Giants were still in New York and Kansas City didn’t have a team yet. My Dad and I and sometimes my Mom, would spend most summer nights listening to the Cardinals play. At that time, Harry Caray was their announcer. He had not yet been involved in a dangerous triangle with one of the Busch boys and his wife and had not yet become the much imitated and parodied joke that he would become later in Chicago. He was the sound track of my summer nights. At some point, his sidekick became Jack Buck. When Harry left, I worried that Jack could not do the Cardinals justice. How wrong I was.
I lived and breathed Cardinal baseball. It was an imprimatur that has not been dulled and will not ever be erased. Stan Musial, Ken Boyer, Don Blasingame, Red Schoendist, Curt Flood, Wally Moon and others were an integral part of my childhood. I followed their exploits like they were super heroes. One of the few extravagances that I was allowed was a Cardinal yearbook. Ordered every year and eagerly awaited in the mail, it had an outline of every major league park, the records of all the clubs, major league baseball records and information on the Cardinal players. I devoured its contents and kept it by the radio for quick and easy reference.
I did not get to see my first Cardinal game in person until I was a senior in high school. My girlfriend’s parents invited me to accompany them to St. Louis to a game. Although less than 500 miles, it took us two days to make the trip. I slept on a cot outside in a park somewhere in Missouri in route and loved every bit of it. At that time, the Cardinals still played in Sportsman Park and standing room only tickets were all we could get. I could only see part of the field from where we ended up standing and Sandy Koufax and the Dodgers shut out the Cardinals 1-0. It was great even if the Cards lost.
I inflicted my feelings for the Cardinals on my children. I recall a twi-night double header in St. Louis with the Dodgers that got started late because of rain and then the first game went into extra innings. My boys toughed it out and my very young daughter slept on bleacher seats until 3 am. The Cardinals swept both. Nothing else mattered. My boys and even my daughter carry on the passion until this day. My sons could only say “Holy Crap, this might happen” as the Cardinals got closer and closer to the championship. I called them both as the fifth game came to a conclusion and the Cardinals were dog piling on the field. All we could do was shout incoherently at each other. It was great.
There have also been times in my life when my relationship with my children was not as good as I wished it could be. Becoming involved in a divorce with their mother will sometimes cause that. However, even when we couldn’t talk about other things, we could always talk about the Cardinals. They have been a constant in my life. Much like the speech about baseball that James Earl Jones gives in “A Field of Dreams”. Thank you, Cards. Thank you kids. I love you.
