Acceptance

2013. Puma was gone now – signed a January contract with Texas, Skip Schumaker traded to the Dodgers. I was expecting Lance to leave. He had been injured most of the year. Wanted to come back to St. Louis, but knew there wasn't room. Ascending fledgling Allen Craig could play First Base and we had another slugger by the name of Carlos Beltran in Right Field, both Lance's former positions. So that wasn't a surprise. Skip wasn't exactly shocking either. The middle infield was crowded, but I was also sad to see him go. I was at least happy that the Cardinals tried to find him a new contending team near his home in California: mission accomplished. We would see him again in the NLCS. Still, two great guys done and gone. Felt like severing cousins from the family.

But, as always, baseball moves on, rarely pausing the progression. And this progression was a big one. Top of the division at the end, tied with bearded Boston for best record in baseball.

NLDS: Pittsburgh. Won. An emotional complete-game-Waino hugging it out with Yadi on home field. They might have been long-lost brothers separated for years by the look on Adam's Georgian-boy face. I thought he might have cried right there. Maybe he did. Waino's an emotional guy anyway, but that certainly iced the cake.

NLCS: LA Dodgers. Won. Better than the LA Angels anyway. I don't care what they say: I never want to see Albert Pujols take on St. Louis. There is a time and a place for competition, and that won't be it. Baseball is baseball, “just a game,” and all that other nonsense. But it's also real life, and real people with emotions and pasts, and ups and downs. And I just don't want to see that. But anyway, except for disappointing Skip and Bic Mac (who had also taken the long road back to sunny California), it was time to eagerly return to World Series Soil.

World Series: Boston. Well … we all know how that one ended. Although I still say – in my “never-picked-up-a-real-bat-in-my-life-until-my-28th-birthday-when-my-grandma-bought-me-my-very-own-Louisville-Slugger” opinion – I'm still convinced that if David Ortiz hadn't played that series, we would have taken that team down in Beantown. Or preferably on home crust. With humility, of course.

Even with that final disappointment halfway across the country, who wouldn't be proud of these guys? They bust their hearts out every day for each other, for the fans, for this city, and that's why we love them.