It's gotta be tough to be a Cardinals fan right now. The way these things go, unless there is a coast involved, all media coverage will not be created equal. St. Lunatics everywhere are like "We won 105 games. What are we, chopped liver?"
Yes, in fact, you are. Like getting into college, if you don't have a hook you don't have much to sell. Maybe if you had been a little more, I don't know, tragic, since 1926, instead of being the National League's Yankees, swallowing up 16 NL titles and nine world titles.
Oh, you haven't won it all since 1982? An ump missed a call in '85 to lose you the title to the intrastate Royals? You had lost the NLCS in '96, '00 and '02? Sorry, you're going to have to buy your sympathy elsewhere. I'm fresh out.
I do not want this to become a "whose fans deserve it more?" diatribe. But there are those who have gone before me who really think they do deserve it more, so bring it on.
I hate to say it because of its "corporate America trying to tug at your heart in order to tug at your wallet" implications , but that new Nike ad sort of grabbed me. You know it as the one tracing the path of two brothers as Sox fans as they watch games together, era to era. And while some questions still linger (How did they keep those front-row seats for all those years? No company bought them out?) I couldn't help but be affected by it. I guess the evolution of a fan is always an easy avenue to go, but I think they nailed it.
You can tell where an organization has been just by looking at its elderly fans. The picture I have of a Cardinals fan is of a little old lady with a toothy grin and maybe plastic cardinals on each of her shoulders that she claims chirp to her during the games. She can reminisce about her heroes; Ozzie Smith, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Stan Musial, all recalled with fond memories. All were men who finished the job, per se.
I think our old ladies are of a little different cloth than that. Did you see the woman interviewed by Fox's Chris Myers during Game 2? She almost interviewed him, with all the wisdom and baggage it appeared she possessed. No smile, at least not one that I could decipher. She mentioned that the Sox were one strike away in '86, as if it hasn't stopped gnawing at her no matter how many 3-0 deficits her team comes back from.
Were she to reminisce about her heroes, my money would be on her mentioning Yaz's season ending popup in the '78 playoff or Teddy Ballgame's .200 average and one RBI performance in 1946.
The Sox are going to earn every smile if they finish this thing off, though. But not until then. So Cardinals fans, wherever you are (sure as hell not on this campus) take solace in that.
I have heard Peter Gammons, a Maine down-easter and Boston Globe-bred Red Sox Nation member, refer to St. Louis as the "Best Baseball Town in America" (BBTIA) on multiple occasions. While that statement could be chalked up to a man in the public eye intentionally trying to steer away from his biases (Sox), I am guessing there is some truth to it.
I think there is most definitely a Cardinal Nation out there. Folks from Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, without a major league team to call their own geographically, root on their Redbirds. I mean, only in the BBTIA could they turn the cookie cutter classic Busch Stadium into something that resembles eye candy. Alas, the same could not be said for, may they rest in peace, Three Rivers, Veterans, and Riverfront Stadiums. Maybe it's because those places didn't bring in grass as soon as the Cardinals did, which brought an "old time baseball" kind of character to the place that was nowhere to be found in the other three spots.
I heard Boston referred to as "a drinking town with a baseball problem." Hardy har, I know. But shouldn't that be St. Louis, the birthplace of Budweiser? Sure, Sam Adams dominates this region, but you go on Yawkey Way and they ask you to remove your arm and leg for 16 ounces of the stuff. Well, six bucks, but still, hardly a hometown discount.
Is not Budweiser born and bred in the Lou? Is not the stadium named after a brewer? Shouldn't these people start living up to the "St. Lunatics" label when they go to ballgames? I would imagine it to be cheaper closer to its home (With Guinness in Ireland, they almost pay you to drink it), so why aren't the fans more nuts at games?
Polite, respectful and supportive doesn't make for passionate fans where I come from. Of course, that does not make us right as obnoxious, look-at-me types. Sox fans may be the Terrell Owens of rooters, announcing our presence with authority any chance we get, while St. Louis is the Marvin Harrison, going about their business and letting their play (or players) do the talking.
I just hope fans from the BBTIA learned a thing or two from watching the last two games in Boston. Chanting is good. It promotes a little bit of ill-will towards the other team, which can never be a bad thing. If the St. Louis faithful pulled out a "NO MORE DH!" chant every time a Sox hurler stepped to the plate, major kudos would be given out. But they need to find another chant now, because that one is mine. Maybe last night they dusted off their version of the "Who's Your Daddy?" chant that they last used on Frank Viola in 1987. But I can't picture it.
Who knows? Maybe they rip into their teams just as much on their sports radio stations. Maybe there is some sort of underground curse there that the national media has failed to get a hold of yet (The Curse of Willie McGee?). But for whatever reason, the Cardinals fan base is not one we can relate to. Unless the Cards were to come back from a deficit to win this series. I think we might know something about that.
