Two Stoic and Very Wet Cardinal Fans

Dave came into town yesterday morning with the intension of catching the final game of the Cardinal’s home stand. Sunday’s game was an inter-league game, against the Texas Rangers. The game’s door prize was a glorified reproduction of a ticket to game seven of the 2011 World Series, where the Cards defeated the Rangers and became World Champions for the eleventh time. Is that laying it on too thick, Jay, or is it just a statement of the facts?

We originally thought that the game was at one in the afternoon, normal Sunday starting time and only discovered our error, when we checked our tickets on the way downtown. We turned right around and chalked it up as a practice run. Poor Dave had to get up at 7 AM and drive from Purdue to make the erroneous start time. The starting time had been moved to 7 PM to accommodate TV. The game was ESPN’s game of the week. Our choice of start times would have worked a lot better, because the afternoon was fair. We made it back downtown at six, just ahead of a long line of thunderstorms. We parked in the closest garage and barely made it into Busch and under cover before the heavens opened up.

What ensued was a three-hour rain delay, technically only 2:59, but I could argue that it really was nine hours from the original start time. This morning, Saint Louis sports commentators were bemoaning the team’s lack of fan consideration. If not for the ESPN TV revenue the game would have likely been called. Both teams had Monday off and could have easily made up the game today. I wouldn’t have been able to see any such rain check game, but Dave and Anne could have and Dave could have invited a friend.

I shouldn’t really bemoan the way things worked out, because the whole intent of the enterprise was to be able to spend some time with Dave. Instead of just three-hours, we got six. This is similar to what happened last year, when we took Dave to the ballgame and experienced a nineteen inning game.

After spending seemingly interminable hours in baseball purgatory, we were finally granted access to baseball heaven and the game began promptly after ten. The Cardinal’s ace Adam Wainwright took the mound. The Rangers had won the first two games of this series, but this game started out promising enough. Wainwright looked good on the mound and Allen Craig gave us a 1-0 lead. Then with two out in the top of the seventh, things began to unwind for us. Wainwright couldn’t get that third out (he was due to be pinched hit for in the bottom) and the next two Rangers got on. That was enough for Wainwright, but it was already too late for the Cards too. Those two Ranger runners became the tieing and winning runs, eventually giving the Ranger’s the victory and sweep.

We got home and I slid safely into bed, just before two. This morning was certainly a dawn of the dead. Anne and Dave were the living better than me, still dead asleep dead, while I was dead on my feet dead at work all day.