Tag Archives: Saint Louis Cardinals

Thanks For The Stamps

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USA Bicycling Forever Stamps

We received a missive from Carl this week. His packages, you can’t really call them letters, they are so much more than that, are always a joy to receive. Carl’s writings are always humorous and frequently eclectic too. The theme of this communication was a less than desirable intersection between bicycling and baseball, the nexus of sports scandals. I think Carl’s impetus was Lance Armstrong’s latest and hopefully, but not likely, final debacle.

Armstrong has been stripped of all seven of his Tour de France yellow jerseys, for doping. Although he was the leader in this type of cheating and certainly the most successful perpetrator of it, he certainly was not the exception. After stripping Armstrong, the Tour elected not to award any of the other participants his former victories. Cheating and doping was deemed just that epidemic.

Carl then offered some sympathy. He commiserated about his similar hero-worship for Pete Rose, the Cincinnati baseball impresario. Rose ran afoul of MLB’s gambling rules and was analogously disgraced. I only take one itsy-bitsy, little exception to what Carl wrote. Carl inferred that I was only a fair weather Cardinal fan, rather could it be that he is that rare bird, a foul weather fan? 

Carl’s letter crossed with our real life results. Anne crashed her bike on Saturday. We spent the afternoon in the ER and she spent the rest of the weekend on the couch. She has managed to haul herself into work every day. Like a weeble, she may wobble, but she doesn’t fall down. She saw a hand specialist on Tuesday, who confirmed that her finger was broken. He plans on pinning her pinky this afternoon. This is surgery, and I will be driving. She saw the knee guy Wednesday. There was nothing broken there, but there is physical training in her future now. Regarding the stamps, that’s me in front and Anne in back, hauling all the baggage.

Must See TV

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Direct TV Blimp

Last night’s Cardinal game was horrible. The Cards played horribly and it was horrible for a Red Bird fan to watch. At the end of the first four games, the Cardinals were up 3-1 over the Giants. In each of the three subsequent games the Cardinal bats went eerily silent. Combine this with rather lackluster starting pitching and the Cards inevitably quickly fell far behind the Giants in each game. Last night’s game was the worse, ending with a final score of 9-0. The last out was fittingly recorded in a pouring rain. The sky was crying its eyes out. To add insult to injury, late in the game, the San Francisco pitcher chose to bean Matt Holliday in retribution for his too aggressive slide into second, earlier in this series, classy Giants, classy.

Simultaneous with last night’s ball game was the third and final presidential debate. As the Cards started their inexorable slide down to defeat, I started flipping over to the debate. At first I would only switch during a baseball commercial break, or when President Obama was speaking. Eventually though, I was even tuning in to hear Romney speak. Yup, it was that bad last night. 😉

I shouldn’t be so glum though, because the Cardinals have done so much better than expected. They had a grand ride this year. They were good, but they were also lucky. I’ve always said that I rather be lucky than good, and the Cards showed everyone just how good and lucky they are, or were. Last night it was clear that their luck had totally played out. Repeating in consecutive years has become almost unheard of in these modern times. For the Red Birds to have gotten as far as they did is a statement in and of itself. It is just that on Sunday afternoon, I saw the Direct TV blimp circling downtown Saint Louis, just like it would have tomorrow, on the first day of the World Series.

The Goddess of Speed

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1937 Packard Goddess of Speed Hood Ornament

On Sunday afternoon, I went for a leisurely bicycle ride in the park. We weren’t exhausted from our morning’s exertions in the basement, but Anne heard the siren song of school work and demurred. So, I set off alone.

The Rock n’ Roll Marathon was still going on in the park. Two bandstands were in the park and another could be heard over at King’s Highway and Pine. The shtick about the Rock n’ Roll Marathon is that they mount a bandstand at every mile, along the 26.2 mile route.

this Also going on in the park, just in front of the History Museum, was the Orphan Car Show. This is a classic car show that is limited to makes of automobiles whose manufacturers have disappeared. One of the club’s car owners tried to explain to me the rules of automobile orphanage, but it pretty much sailed right over my head, except to say that sometime in the not too distant future Pontiac cars will be eligible to join this club.

This paragraph is the political rant one, Repugs [KW] may want to skip to the next one or so. Crossing Clayton, I noticed that Crestwood has sprouted Romney yard signs. What gives? Missouri is a red state and is not in play. Maybe it is Romney’s rise in the polls? If so, that’s like rooting for the Cardinals after they are already in the playoffs. At the car show was a women wearing a Romney T-shirt and matching ball cap. I guess she was campaigning, or at least showing her flag. I resisted talking with her, because any such discussion would have been futile. Almost as futile as this rant, except that it makes me feel better saying the things that need to be said.

Personally, I think that Romney is screwed. He screwed himself the day that he wrote that New York Times Op-Ed saying that Detroit should go bankrupt. Meanwhile, Obama swept in and saved Detroit. Michigan, Romney’s adopted state is no longer in play. The state that his father ran American Motors from and then became governor of will vote Obama, as will Ohio, and for all of the same reasons. No Republican has been elected president, without winning Ohio. This one won’t win Ohio or the presidency. He is not a car guy, no matter how much he claims he is. OBTW, there were several AMC products on the lot.

It’s Hard Being #1

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Windows and Reflections

It is hard to be number one. I say this in all honesty and as a cautionary tale to those baseball teams that aspire to snatch the World Championship from the Saint Louis Cardinals. It is hard. You may be good enough to take the title, but will you be good enough to hold on to it? I’m just saying that the traditional Thai curse of the gift of a white elephant is totally relevant and not to be taken lightly.

In last Friday’s game, the Cards failed to clinch the National League Pennant. Now they have to play next to the bay today. If they had won on Friday, things would have been a whole lot simpler today. Between Friday and this Sunday morning, my entire extended family has become unglued. My once trash talking brothers have again started up their terrible chatter. I again had to endure a phone conversation with them that boiled down to, “The Cardinals are going down!”, “Yeah!!”, “Oh, yeah!!!” I find it hard to respond to such well formulated arguments. Meanwhile, my sister-in-law Jane is chomping on the Word Series bit with her Detroit Tigers. Jane calm down. Whether the Red Birds win or lose, whether it takes six games or seven, none of this will bring the World Series sooner even one day. For the record, if the Cardinals should just happen to falter, and not win the pennant then I will switch my allegiance to the Giants, but that’s just silly speech.

OK, I have now successfully pissed off both my family and my in-laws and everyone I know in Saint Louis. But wait, there is more. In this dilemma, I thought about appealing to a higher authority, not the baseball commissioner or even the owners, but Reverend Carl of the Church of Baseball. Rev. Carl has always been most ecumenical when it came to baseball. In any playoff series, he has always rooted for the underdog and the extension of that series to its fulfillment.

His recent snail mail missive praised the Cardinals, with the exception of his signoff, “It’s not fair.” I’ll tell you what’s not fair Carl, you be stuck with the Mariners. Move to Saint Louis. See the light. Live within easy driving distance of dozens of ball teams. You know you want to. 👿

Maybe the problem is that the Cards are becoming too much like the Yankees. Not like this year, but over the long haul. The Yankees have far and a way the most championships and everyone hates them for it, but the Cards are second. The Yankees also have the most pennants, but the Cardinals, Giants and the Dodgers are all tied up for number two. This year will edge one team into overall pennant second place.

As I’ve said, it’s hard being number one. The Red Birds are still up to the challenge. Besides today they have a special reason to clinch the pennant. Today is Jay’s birthday. Sorry about trying to lure your husband to greener pastures. Can’t we all just get along? I’m sure a Cardinal pennant would make a lovely birthday present. Happy Birthday, Jay!

GO CARDS!!

Trash Talk

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Carlos Beltran

I started getting emails yesterday from my two brothers entitled, “Trash Talk”. They both live in northern California and are fans of the San Francisco Giants. I too am a fan of the Giants and have been since the fourth grade. Back then my heroes were the likes of Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Juan Marichal. My brothers and I would root for and cheer on our beloved Giants, especially against their hated rivals, the LA Dodgers.

Them Bums featured luminaries of the likes of Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and that thief, Maury Wills. Chris and I would listen together to the Giant’s ball games on one of our matching eight transistor radios. I never did figure out what the two extra transistors did over the cheaper six transistor model, but I never regretted paying the extra cost.

In the intervening years, deeper love has since grown for the Saint Louis Cardinals. I’ve lived in Saint Louis for the last thirty-two years. I guess that you could rate the Giants now as my second favorite baseball team. In between San Francisco and Saint Louis we lived outside of Washington DC, where the hapless Senators never generated much love from me. Then it was on to Michigan and the Tigers, but there too there was little love lost. This time it was not so much the fault of the ball club, but that of girls. I discovered girls, actually one girl in particular.

I remember taking my Anne and her cousin Anne Emily to their first MLB game. It was a romp. I forget who the Tigers were playing, maybe it was the re-branded Senators, anyway every time the Tigers were up to bat, we would be in our seats, watching them fire for effect. About the time that our beers were empty, the Tigers would be retired. We then all headed off to the bathrooms, bought another round and would be back in our seats when the Tigers were next coming up to bat. I think that this game left the twin-headed Anne with a rather skewed concept of MLB play.

In between Michigan and Saint Louis my brothers moved to Arlington, Texas. There they rejoined the once hapless Senators, now re-branded as the not much more effective Texas Rangers. Time passed and Anne and I settled into Saint Louis life. In both 1985 and 1987, both Anne and the Saint Louis Cardinals delivered. Anne delivered two boys, Dan and Dave and the Cardinals delivered two pennants and one World Championship.

Fast forward to last year’s World Series, featuring the Cardinals and the Rangers. It was about this time that the trash talk began. This talk kept ratcheting up through the series, right up to the Cardinal’s first last strike, in the sixth game of the series. Well, we all know how that turned out. Apparently though, there are some people who are slow learners. We’ll just have to teach them another lesson. 😉

GO CARDS!

Red Birds 6, Hostiles 3

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I listened to yesterday’s Cardinal and Braves Wildcard Playoff Game on KMOX radio, so I couldn’t see all that was going on, but it sounded pretty wild, even for a Wildcard game. Yesterday’s one game playoff series is a novelty of this year’s baseball season. Major League Baseball added a second wildcard spot and this one game playoff with the object of increasing the importance to teams of winning their division.

The Braves jumped out ahead with a 2-0 lead. The Cards came back with three runs, capitalizing on a Braves error. Two more Braves errors later, by the bottom of the eighth, the Cards were up 6-3, which turned out to also be the final score. The Braves were threatening, with men on first and second. The batter hit an easy pop-up, but confusion between two Cardinal fielders led to the fly being dropped. This didn’t matter though, because the umpire had invoked the infield fly rule.

I’ll leave understanding the infield fly rule as a homework assignment for the discerning reader. Commentary has criticized the timing of this call and to a lesser extent the call’s correctness. The Atlanta fans erupted in a twenty-minute temper tantrum, throwing trash on to the field and delaying the game. Play restarted, with the Red Birds eventually winning.

On Sunday, Saint Louis will host the Washington Nationals. I expect Saint Louis to be a more hospitable town than Atlanta was to us. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

GO CARDS!

Dan texted Anne these three photographs. The paparazzi, meaning me, managed to eventually get his hands on them. Hardwood floors, bright lighting and plenty of windows make this place look pretty nice.