I am resolutely and without a doubt a St. Louis Cardinals’ Fan. I have been since Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Ken Boyer, and the 1964 team. I used to love to listen to the Minnesota Twins lose baseball games on radio when I was a child, listening to the games when we went to Grandma Beyer’s house on Sunday afternoons. Great Grandpa Raymond, Grandma’s dad, was in his nineties, and rooting for the Twins to get a series. But one time he turned on Grandma’s RCA Victor color television set in ’64 and the Cardinals were playing winning ball. Red and white, color and drama, the team you decided to root for could actually win! Who knew? Great Grandpa is responsible for my fierce love of a game that is usually slightly more exciting than paint drying. And it was all about numbers! Lou Brock stole how many bases? Bob’s ERA was how low? Ken Boyer had what fielding percentage on third base? And I hate math! But I kept score. We couldn’t get Cardinals games on our TV at home, in black and white and plywood. But we could get Cubs games on Channel 3, and the Cubs played the Cardinals a lot! Most games were followed in the daily Globe Gazette, the Mason City newspaper.
So, to my dying day I will continue to live for baseball. And I know it is a totally irrational thing. If you cut me, I will bleed Cardinal red. And that’s the honest truth.
And Sunday, I pitched a no-hitter on the Xbox where I have a copy of MLB ’04 with Albert Pujols as a Cardinal on the cover! And I know that it only means that now that I am retired I am spending far too much time playing computer games, even if it was only a no-hitter on rookie level. It was a no-hitter!!!! One fielding error away from a perfect game!!!! Don’t tell me to stop shouting!!!! You can’t really hear excessive exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, and the Cardinals are in first place in their division again. In September when it counts. Thank you, God! It’s great to be alive when you are a Cardinals’ Fan.
Catch a Falling Star 