Sometimes St. Louis gets hit by hurricanes. Given our landlocked position in the U.S., these hurricanes arrive only in the form of baseball-related monsters, altering the general mood of a city already prone to change based on the current box score.
This particular hurricane blew in out of nowhere, mostly from a westerly direction and an origination point known as Anaheim, California.
For years, Albert smoothly assured his faithful – his millions of faithful – that he wanted to retire a Cardinal, red jacket included. Who wouldn't? If we're all honest here, in a city that tends to value loyalty more than most other virtues, there haven't been more than a few disgruntled players who haven't wanted to retire a Cardinal. It's just a fact of life. And I really believed, and still do, that Albert Pujols meant what he said.
But then life changes, that proverbial curveball. Some folks blame the 254 million, or the ten years, or maybe even the change of climate. If that's one thing players don't like in St. Louis, it's probably the intense summer boil and/or, for those who take up permanent residence, the equally uncomfortable winter deep freeze. Freeze, not Freese.
When it all went down and the city erupted into one mass chaos of disbelief, anger, and regret, I remember wondering how Albert could leave all these guys who had become his family, his brothers. Probably especially Yadi: big-brother, little-brother. But I tend to think that we'll never really know why Albert left. Not in full. After all, it's in many ways a private decision. I'm sure many people would prefer – maybe especially after living in a floodlight for eleven years – to keep most personal matters close to the chest. And in the end, that's fair.
Although no matter what Albert Pujols accomplishes in his remaining seven, eight years in L.A., it can't match the moments he had, and the family he has, back home. This is nothing against the good fans of Anaheim. But you remember your roots and the people who helped raise you, and in a very real way, St. Louis did that for this big guy, still proud of that homegrown son they call Prince Albert.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Friday, August 22, 2014
A Ring for Puma
Sprawled out on a blanket with my son at the top of a still-green Art Hill, October 25th, 2011. While my four year-old son played, I was reading a cookbook. A cookbook. I never read cookbooks. But I was definitely thinking more about Game 6 of the World Series than about photographs of three-layered Italian rainbow cakes.
Fast forward those easy four and a half years since my son was born, and it was time for championships once again. I had come in late to the race. One of the first images I saw on the television about the play-offs was a woman wearing a stuffed squirrel on her hat, interviewed at a local downtown bar after the Cards clinched the NLDS in Philadelphia.
Enter Lance Berkman. I was oblivious to who this guy was – strangely – even living in St. Louis where everything breathes baseball. My first inspiring thought was, “He doesn't really look like a Lance…” I had tracked him the past couple of weeks leading up to Game 6. Maybe it was because he was so affable, maybe it was because he's a goofy Texan (I hear a lot about Texas from all my in-laws), but I think the real reason he became an instant favorite is because he turned down the idea of a trade to Texas (despite being hard core Lone Star state loyal), because he loved the Cardinals so much.
He deserved a World Series ring.
Game 6 was postponed one day by rain. This delay had helped work me into an ever-escalating bundle of nerves. Who cared if I hadn't tracked pure baseball the past five years? I was back like I had never been gone, and this time, I wanted Big Puma to get that ring.
Looking back, despite all the hype leading up to, during, and after that ridiculous game, I remember only two concrete things: sitting on my bed staring at a very non-HD 20” screen where Lance Berkman was stepping up to the plate for the final time. “Really?” I thought to myself, and the Creator of the Universe. “The one guy I really want to get a ring, and he's going to be the final out? That's a little cruel, don't you think?” Pause for reverence. So when he knocked in that game-tying RBI-single sending Jon Jay and his 'fro bouncing across home plate … I didn't move for a few seconds. It was all over so fast after that, the only thing I remember next is my whole family calling me up over the speakerphone with my three sisters screaming and yelling in the background. Make that the entire city. I doubt there was even one person in St. Louis who wasn't going bonkers at that moment.
Did I sleep after that?
Maybe; probably. But it wouldn't drain out of my head again. No more gaps between baseball. As I stood in the stadium to applaud Lance Berkman and the other Cardinals heroes just three days later during the Championship Ceremony, I already knew it was going to stick this time.
Fast forward those easy four and a half years since my son was born, and it was time for championships once again. I had come in late to the race. One of the first images I saw on the television about the play-offs was a woman wearing a stuffed squirrel on her hat, interviewed at a local downtown bar after the Cards clinched the NLDS in Philadelphia.
Enter Lance Berkman. I was oblivious to who this guy was – strangely – even living in St. Louis where everything breathes baseball. My first inspiring thought was, “He doesn't really look like a Lance…” I had tracked him the past couple of weeks leading up to Game 6. Maybe it was because he was so affable, maybe it was because he's a goofy Texan (I hear a lot about Texas from all my in-laws), but I think the real reason he became an instant favorite is because he turned down the idea of a trade to Texas (despite being hard core Lone Star state loyal), because he loved the Cardinals so much.
He deserved a World Series ring.
Game 6 was postponed one day by rain. This delay had helped work me into an ever-escalating bundle of nerves. Who cared if I hadn't tracked pure baseball the past five years? I was back like I had never been gone, and this time, I wanted Big Puma to get that ring.
Looking back, despite all the hype leading up to, during, and after that ridiculous game, I remember only two concrete things: sitting on my bed staring at a very non-HD 20” screen where Lance Berkman was stepping up to the plate for the final time. “Really?” I thought to myself, and the Creator of the Universe. “The one guy I really want to get a ring, and he's going to be the final out? That's a little cruel, don't you think?” Pause for reverence. So when he knocked in that game-tying RBI-single sending Jon Jay and his 'fro bouncing across home plate … I didn't move for a few seconds. It was all over so fast after that, the only thing I remember next is my whole family calling me up over the speakerphone with my three sisters screaming and yelling in the background. Make that the entire city. I doubt there was even one person in St. Louis who wasn't going bonkers at that moment.
Did I sleep after that?
Maybe; probably. But it wouldn't drain out of my head again. No more gaps between baseball. As I stood in the stadium to applaud Lance Berkman and the other Cardinals heroes just three days later during the Championship Ceremony, I already knew it was going to stick this time.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Distracted from Reeses
It was two years after that unfortunate World Series meeting against Beantown, and I wasn't feeling quite so full of zip as I had at a fresh 19. Three months preggo with our first son, and there I was again – although sizably larger – right back in front of the television, thick in the playoffs between St. Louis and Detroit … and feeling pretty thick myself.
Friday, October 27th. A fog of drowsy second trimester sludge, and I was stretched out half-asleep on my parents' living room couch while my husband was probably out babysitting the church youth group. No way was I shoveling myself out to do the same, while our boys-in-red scorched the Tigers on home turf. And yet I could still hardly keep my eyes open.
But I did see the end, the final pitch – Wainwright to Yadi – and the jumping huddle of grown men, giddy as puppies in a butterfly garden. Melting happiness: the whole city.
What did I do for days after this victory? It was Halloween by then. Normally I play the same angle as my dad, casually lobbying for overlooked Reeses from my siblings. But not this time. I all but ignored those bright orange packages because I was too busy watching every home run Albert Pujols had hit over the last six years. In slow motion. I was fascinated. The sheer power. This was Mark McGwire all over again. Hooked.
This lasted for awhile. But then I hit the third trimester, and the weight of a nine-pound baby on a five-foot-two-and-a-half, hundred pound frame was taking its toll. Distractions abounded for a first-time mom, first-time home owner. And so baseball once again slipped into the background, surfacing momentarily in the form of a twelve-inning loss to the Giants, April 18th, my first night in the hospital with our newborn son. I hadn't really slept in 48 hours, and the last image I remember from the television was a disappointed Albert Pujols jogging off the field.
This had to last me for basically the next four and a half years. Infant, toddler, preschool, pre-K, my life would continue following that line, taking in a game here and there, even a beauty of a seat on the first base line that same warm summer of the year I became a mom. But in retrospect, it was the right thing to do. Four years later, I was more than happy to make the adjustment to full-time mom, full-time fan.
Friday, October 27th. A fog of drowsy second trimester sludge, and I was stretched out half-asleep on my parents' living room couch while my husband was probably out babysitting the church youth group. No way was I shoveling myself out to do the same, while our boys-in-red scorched the Tigers on home turf. And yet I could still hardly keep my eyes open.
But I did see the end, the final pitch – Wainwright to Yadi – and the jumping huddle of grown men, giddy as puppies in a butterfly garden. Melting happiness: the whole city.
What did I do for days after this victory? It was Halloween by then. Normally I play the same angle as my dad, casually lobbying for overlooked Reeses from my siblings. But not this time. I all but ignored those bright orange packages because I was too busy watching every home run Albert Pujols had hit over the last six years. In slow motion. I was fascinated. The sheer power. This was Mark McGwire all over again. Hooked.
This lasted for awhile. But then I hit the third trimester, and the weight of a nine-pound baby on a five-foot-two-and-a-half, hundred pound frame was taking its toll. Distractions abounded for a first-time mom, first-time home owner. And so baseball once again slipped into the background, surfacing momentarily in the form of a twelve-inning loss to the Giants, April 18th, my first night in the hospital with our newborn son. I hadn't really slept in 48 hours, and the last image I remember from the television was a disappointed Albert Pujols jogging off the field.
This had to last me for basically the next four and a half years. Infant, toddler, preschool, pre-K, my life would continue following that line, taking in a game here and there, even a beauty of a seat on the first base line that same warm summer of the year I became a mom. But in retrospect, it was the right thing to do. Four years later, I was more than happy to make the adjustment to full-time mom, full-time fan.
Friday, August 8, 2014
Home Schooled in the 90s
I remember the 2004 World Series in particular because it revived the spark originally lit six years before by Mark McGwire's chase for 62.
Two months freshly married, I was 19 and for some reason late August had re-brewed the hype of sports in my life. Growing up, sports were moot. Home schooled in the 90s; organized sports didn't exist yet. There was a desert of opportunity: “soccer” after choir practice on Tuesdays, the occasional co-ed baseball when soccer got too old. Mostly because the boys got tired of the girls getting in the way when trying to score. I took a shot to the face once that stung like wasps; the kid who kicked the ball ended up being my brother-in-law. (I blame him for my crooked nose.) No, the closest thing to sports in my life – for most of my life – were stories of my dad's football glory days at McCluer North High School back in the 70's, and later a few at MIZZOU.
After nearly two decades, this drought was ending. By proxy, at least. I couldn't play myself, but the 2004 Olympics gave me a small flavor. Two days before my wedding, I was more interested in the results of the women's volleyball match than in which hairstyle my sister had planned for me for the big day. It sizzled a little more when I caught the fuzzy reception from Athens in our honeymoon cruise ship somewhere in the middle of the Caribbean.
So by the time I had settled in as the new Mrs. W., set up our cracker box apartment, and resumed big sister duties while my parents toured Europe for three weeks, I caught news of the playoffs between college exams and two days a week as church secretary.
And yet, even with all this revived verve for sports, I missed out. I have a snapshot of my baby sister (seven years old at the time), decked out in red and silver carnival beads while we waited for the World Series to start. Happy and hopeful for victories she couldn't yet understand in her Second Grade mind. Clearly I couldn't either as a 4th-year college student. How do I know that?
Because I spent Game 4 shopping with my mom and sister in a completely deserted Macy's.
Yes, Macy's. Why? To this day, I do not know. I hate shopping anyway. I remember brushing through lonely racks of sweaters, listening to the desolation of staticky radio over the PA system, indicating the end of October hopes downtown in a sober city. But once again, it was a slow sign of things to come.
Two months freshly married, I was 19 and for some reason late August had re-brewed the hype of sports in my life. Growing up, sports were moot. Home schooled in the 90s; organized sports didn't exist yet. There was a desert of opportunity: “soccer” after choir practice on Tuesdays, the occasional co-ed baseball when soccer got too old. Mostly because the boys got tired of the girls getting in the way when trying to score. I took a shot to the face once that stung like wasps; the kid who kicked the ball ended up being my brother-in-law. (I blame him for my crooked nose.) No, the closest thing to sports in my life – for most of my life – were stories of my dad's football glory days at McCluer North High School back in the 70's, and later a few at MIZZOU.
After nearly two decades, this drought was ending. By proxy, at least. I couldn't play myself, but the 2004 Olympics gave me a small flavor. Two days before my wedding, I was more interested in the results of the women's volleyball match than in which hairstyle my sister had planned for me for the big day. It sizzled a little more when I caught the fuzzy reception from Athens in our honeymoon cruise ship somewhere in the middle of the Caribbean.
So by the time I had settled in as the new Mrs. W., set up our cracker box apartment, and resumed big sister duties while my parents toured Europe for three weeks, I caught news of the playoffs between college exams and two days a week as church secretary.
And yet, even with all this revived verve for sports, I missed out. I have a snapshot of my baby sister (seven years old at the time), decked out in red and silver carnival beads while we waited for the World Series to start. Happy and hopeful for victories she couldn't yet understand in her Second Grade mind. Clearly I couldn't either as a 4th-year college student. How do I know that?
Because I spent Game 4 shopping with my mom and sister in a completely deserted Macy's.
Yes, Macy's. Why? To this day, I do not know. I hate shopping anyway. I remember brushing through lonely racks of sweaters, listening to the desolation of staticky radio over the PA system, indicating the end of October hopes downtown in a sober city. But once again, it was a slow sign of things to come.
Friday, August 1, 2014
Panpipes & Baseball
Sixteen years later, and I still pull it out every summer: Sombra Aymara, the somehow-chalky sound of South American panpipes. My little sister bought the CD on the cobblestones of a hot summer fair in August, sucked in by live music piping between plates of funnel cakes and stalls of homemade wind chimes. Suddenly, it was the only music we listened to that summer, every day, all six of us kids; we loved it. August was the month of panpipes, a new sound in a young world.
There was something else new that summer, something so linked with my hometown that it is one and the same. St. Louis and Baseball.
I was thirteen years old the warm summer of 1998, the summer of the home run chase, the summer an entire city was in love with one man. The muscle and brawn of Mark McGwire. Can it really be explained, this magnetic attraction to one swing of the bat? My sister and I still talk about it from time to time, the allure of watching Big Mac pound a home run into the stands. We weren't the only ones. One city, addicted.
As the chase intensified – and we listened to more panpipes between nightly games – there were rumors running around for weeks that this wonder of mankind lived maybe a mile down the road from our long-time childhood home. Maybe half a mile. For a summer, we were obsessed with finding out for sure. My sister was too young to join me, but I remember every possible Friday biking one neighborhood over with a friend, just to figure out which house was his. To be so close to greatness! It was a game, really. Which castle did he own? Was it the one with a false balcony and fountains, or the modern one with the funny angles? I would bring reports back to my sister. “I'm sure this is the one.” “I think we finally found it.” “I don't know… There were tons of plants in the windows.” “Maybe it was his.” We never knew. But it didn't stop us from hovering like nervous rabbits around the streets – and, yes, sometimes the windows – hoping a great sign would be revealed that, indeed, a home run prodigy did live within.
And while we watched the chase, and biked to chase, we listened to more panpipes. So much panpipe. The connection was irrelevant, I'm sure. In no way do panpipes and baseball logically mix. But even this long time later, I hear the panpipes and still immediately see the red hair and ox-strong arms of our first baseman smashing another one somewhere just south of outer space. The man who first inspired me to love baseball.
There was something else new that summer, something so linked with my hometown that it is one and the same. St. Louis and Baseball.
I was thirteen years old the warm summer of 1998, the summer of the home run chase, the summer an entire city was in love with one man. The muscle and brawn of Mark McGwire. Can it really be explained, this magnetic attraction to one swing of the bat? My sister and I still talk about it from time to time, the allure of watching Big Mac pound a home run into the stands. We weren't the only ones. One city, addicted.
As the chase intensified – and we listened to more panpipes between nightly games – there were rumors running around for weeks that this wonder of mankind lived maybe a mile down the road from our long-time childhood home. Maybe half a mile. For a summer, we were obsessed with finding out for sure. My sister was too young to join me, but I remember every possible Friday biking one neighborhood over with a friend, just to figure out which house was his. To be so close to greatness! It was a game, really. Which castle did he own? Was it the one with a false balcony and fountains, or the modern one with the funny angles? I would bring reports back to my sister. “I'm sure this is the one.” “I think we finally found it.” “I don't know… There were tons of plants in the windows.” “Maybe it was his.” We never knew. But it didn't stop us from hovering like nervous rabbits around the streets – and, yes, sometimes the windows – hoping a great sign would be revealed that, indeed, a home run prodigy did live within.
And while we watched the chase, and biked to chase, we listened to more panpipes. So much panpipe. The connection was irrelevant, I'm sure. In no way do panpipes and baseball logically mix. But even this long time later, I hear the panpipes and still immediately see the red hair and ox-strong arms of our first baseman smashing another one somewhere just south of outer space. The man who first inspired me to love baseball.
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