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Tonight, Busch Stadium will host a baseball game upon its hallowed grounds. If the Cards win, then we play again tomorrow, assuming the rains hold off.

Yesterday, the city was abuzz with all manner of conversation about what has begun to be called “The Miracle at Minute Maid”. Seems like that’s all anyone wanted to talk about. One of the best written pieces I saw about Monday’s game was from Tim McKernan, a local talk radio guy. It really takes Minute Maid Park to task for even hosting baseball, and some thoughts about how games three and four might’ve been different if they were played in a real ball park. You can read his article here.

One of the crew at insidestl.com even created the nice MasterCard-esque description of Monday’s fun that I’ve linked here. Really sums it up, I think. This one is making the rounds all over Cardinal Nation.

The news last night even played the radio broadcast play-by-play of Pujols’ home run from the a Houston radio station. You could really hear the depression in that sportscaster’s voice. For contrast, they also played a spanish-language radio play-by-play from somewhere, and you would’ve thought Pujols had just kicked the winning goal in overtime during a World Cup soccer match. I haven’t heard anyone scream like that in a long, long time! 🙂

We were also treated to a comparison of the front page of the St. Louis and Houston newspapers. Needless to say, ours was a little less gloomy.

And, at the request of the Fox affiliate here, MLB allowed them to rebroadcast the entire 9th inning, commercial free, and including the announcement of Berkman as the Chevy Player of the Game. I really think an awful lot of people saw the first two strikeouts in the 9th, and gave up. This gave folks a chance to either see it for the first time, or relive The Miracle at Minute Maid. Very cool.

So tonight, it continues. Will we be victorious? Dunno, but I like our chances!

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Facing elimination, the Cards last night took on the Astros down in Houston. We’d lost three in a row — the last time the Cards lost four games in a row was last season at the hands of the BoSox in the World Series. Could we avoid four in a row against the Astros?

We had Carpenter hurling for us, and they foisted Pettitte on us — a great pitching matchup. The Cards, though, looked like they did against Boston last year in the World Series — spent, lackluster, and missing the fire in their eyes. It was a close game until the bottom of the 7th when Berkman popped a three-run homer, giving Houston a two-run lead. The Houston fans and bench were dancing and screaming, carrying on like they’d already won.

Fast forward to the top of the ninth. Lidge came in to pitch and struck out our first two batters, and then had to face Eckstein. The little man worked Lidge for a hit, which brought Edmonds to the plate as the tying run. Now, Edmonds hasn’t been impressive lately with the bat, but somehow finessed a base on balls out of Lidge. This brought up Pujols as the potential winning run. Obviously Pujols wanted to play more — he cranked a huge three-run homer to give us the lead for good. That was the longest home run I’d seen hit in the series, and it could’ve have come at a better time! Had Fox not had already named Berkman as the player of the game, I’m sure Pujols would’ve gotten the nod — like Fox says on their commercials, you can’t script October, and even they thought the game was a done deal. Not quite.

What was amazing to me was the deafening silence that ensued after Pujols did his damage. It went from raucus to stone dead quiet, almost like someone flipped a switch. And of course, the Astros bench was devastated. To be as close as one strike to going to the World Series, and then have it all yanked away… well, that’s gotta be a tough deal. However, I think with that huge win, and the focus moving to St. Louis, I like the Cards’ chances.

So, Busch Stadium gets a reprieve from the wrecking ball, and baseball once again will grace the grass field come Wednesday. Ya-hoo!

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Last night, the Angels defeated the Yankees, clinching their ALDS. So, Anaheim played in New York Sunday night, Anaheim last night, and Chicago tonight. Now that’s a road trip!

Our rematch against the Astros begins Wednesday, and I can’t wait. It should be every bit as interesting and entertaining as last year. I just hope we don’t use all the gas in the tank like we did last year. I’m convinced we just had nothing left for the Red Sox after that exhausting series against Houston.

Of course, I’d hate even worse going to the World Series, and breaking the White Sox drought of championships! Doing that two years in a row just doesn’t sound appealing! 🙂

Last night, in the wee hours, the Cardinals finished off their sweep of the Padres, and assured themselves another NLCS at Busch. We open here on Wednesday.

However, I’m mortified over our next opponent — either the Braves or the Astros. The Braves have the Jones boys, and Houston has all the offense and pitching you could want. Either team would be tough to play, but I’ve gotta be rooting for the Braves to join us in St. Louis for the NLCS. Their starting pitching is pretty good, but their relief pitching is a little shaky, and that plays well into the way the Cards seem to win games lately.

And there’ll be no rematch of last year’s World Series — The BoSox were swept by the ChiSox. There’s starting to be some rumble here about a St. Louis – Chicago World Series, and I believe that could come to pass. Anaheim’s looking awfully good though……

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Beck and I played hookey this afternoon, and went down to Busch for Game 2 of the NLDS. The company had arranged for about 40 of us to attend in one of the luxury suites. As always, that experience alone was very cool. But so was the game. We sat in the front row of the suite for an unobstructed view of the game from a couple of stories up, almost in dead center field. We had tickets to this suite a couple of years ago for an NLCS game against the SF Giants, and it was every bit as fun this time.

The weather was even better than Game 1. It was 89 degrees at game time Tuesday; today, it was 65 and breezy. Fall is here just in time for the Fall Classic!

The game, of course, was great. Unusually, the Cardinals had no home runs, but still found ways to score, and won the game 6-2. That sends the Cards to San Diego Saturday night for a light night game, and with a great shot of winning the series in San Diego over the weekend.

Of course, fewer folks in St. Louis have gotten to see the games than you’d expect. MLB (and probably Fox and ESPN) have decided that the games amongst the two small markets of St. Louis and San Diego should be scheduled around the games involving the teams from the large markets. They get prime time slots, and we get what’s left, so our first two games were Noon and 3pm on weekdays, and Saturday night’s game will start at 9pm local time. While we work and sleep, the Cardinals are winning. Sure doesn’t do much to get kids involved in watching this sport and becoming lifelong fans, eh?!

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Today, I did something I’ve never done before. I sat in the bleachers at Busch Stadium. Better yet, it was for a playoff game!

Gene and I left the office at 10.30am for the Noon start, and figured we could make the 30 miles to the ballpark in 90 minutes. Bad assumption so it turned out. We barely got off the interstate by Noon. After driving around for a while, we parked at the Arch, and hoofed it to Busch. Along the way, we heard from a cop at an intersection that Jim Edmonds had hit a home run, and the Cards were leading.

After getting to the stadium, finding our seats and getting settled in, we watched the game unfurl. Three runs quickly, a grand slam, and then some interesting pitching in the 9th, and the Cards held on to win.

Just as interesting as the game though, was the experience of the bleachers. Those are fans that really love the game, really pound the beer down, and aren’t shy about saying what they think. I can’t think of a better way to enjoy a game!

Becky and I are going to Thursday’s game, but will be at the other end of the spectrum, visiting one of the suites. I don’t know that I’ve ever gone to two games back to back, much less with such a vast span between seating arrangements. Should be fun!

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Tomorrow, the second season of baseball begins — the playoffs start!

And, with some luck, I’ve landed a pair of tickets for the game, and will be planted in the bleachers for the first time in my Cardinals-attending career. I hear that is the most fun place to watch the game from, and that I won’t forget the experience.

Frankly, I’m looking forward to a win tomorrow against the Padres. I’m sure it’ll be a good game, but I really have to think that Chris Carpenter will bring us home a winner to open the playoffs.

And, once again, I’ll look around Busch Stadium for what could be my last time, and say my private farewells.

The famous catchphrase spoken by Jack Buck best sums up the regular season for the Cardinals. Today, they finished the season with a victory over the Reds, and 100 wins on the season — the most in the majors this season, and the first back to back 100+ wins for the Cards in a long, long time.

Of course, this was also the last regular season home game at Busch Stadium. It has an appointment with the wrecking ball after post season play has been completed. Today’s postgame was a tribute to the men and the organization that has paraded 40 seasons of baseball through Busch, and so very many of those players were on hand. It was fun to see players that I didn’t even realize played for the Cards show up, get their applause, and take their position on history’s stage. Really quite moving.

But now it’s on to the post season, and facing San Diego come Tuesday at Noon. Not that I’m looking past the Padres, but we would face either Atlanta or Houston in the next round, and I’m not too jazzed about facing either club. They’re both tough, and I know Houston would like another shot at knocking us out of the hunt after last year’s heroics.

Bring ’em on!

Bad news from downtown this morning: the St. Louis Blues are up for sale. And, as icing on the cake, Savvis wants to drop their name from the arena the Blues play in.

So, can you attract someone to sponsor the arena, when there’s doubt as to whether the (presumably) biggest moneymaker may not even be in town? I doubt it.

My view? Well, in order for the center-formerly-known-as-Kiel-Center (a nice, succinct name proposal after Savvis abandons the arena, and before new sponsorship is found) to attract a new patron, the sale of the Blues has to be complete, and it has to be clear whether the team will move or not. If the Blues leave town, I have to think the pricetag for “Your Name Here” on the side of the arena would be much, much less than if they are still skating inside.

Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them leave. It be a shame after 30+ years, but in this age of mobile franchises, it certainly wouldn’t be out of the question. However, the sports fans in St. Louis have long memories, and I’m sure that adopting a new team would be tough, even after a long dry spell with no hockey to break up the winter. That’s assuming, of course, that St. Louis could attract another team. This is a big hockey town, with a good potential fan base, so the right elements are there. I guess it just depends on whether there will be any Canadian teams left to move south! 🙂

Today is a day that I really look forward to each year — the Sunday before Memorial Day. It is today that the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 are run.

The Indy is always amazing to me — it really is the biggest spectacle in motor sports. The hoopla was heightened greatly this year by the performance of Danica Patrick during the weeks leading up to the race. She’s a different face for racing — young, sexy, smart and entirely understanding of her role as a driver. She just oozes confidence, and she sure proved that that confidence wasn’t unfounded in the race. Starting fourth and finishing fourth, and becoming the first woman to lead laps at Indy, she really made her mark. It seemed she could effortlessly move to the front after several miscues — stalling her engine, and spinning into a small wreck. It was exciting to see her plow through the field.

Lost in the hype over Danica Patrick though was the winner, Dan Wheldon. He’s the first Brit to win the Indy in 40 years, and the shame of it is that his feat will be long overshadowed by Danica, and her great day at the track. It didn’t help that Brent Mussburger couldn’t seem to get his mind or commentary off Danica’s accomplishments of the day.

(BTW, ABC showed a comparison of Danica Patrick against the Borg-Warner trophy — she’s ten pounds lighter, and a couple of inches shorter. I guess the trophy is bigger than life! Another tidbit of trivia: Google now has over 275,000 hits when you search for her name.)

With an hour’s break, the Coca-Cola 600 started from Charlotte NC. I love the night NASCAR races, and this one is the longest race of the season. No huge surprises — the typically strong teams raced well, and in the end, Jimmie Johnson ended up with his third 600 in a row. No one’s done that before, and Johnson pulled it off out of the last turn on the last lap. A thriller to watch, and under the lights too… it was a fun race.

All I wonder now is how to get the big dent from my backside out of the couch cushions!