Stream of conscious:
WOW, what a feeling, what an experience!
How could this have happened? The 2006 St. Louis Cardinals, against the highest of odds, are the WORLD SERIES CHAMPS!!! I'm still in a state of disbelief. The unthinkable really has happened. We really won the World Series. In the first season of a new ballpark, with a starting pitcher rescued from the mid-season scrap heap and a rookie closer subbing for our injured closer. We beat a good Padres club, a great Mets team, and then reached the mountaintop by conquering the Detroit Tigers and their fireballing pitchers.
In the end, fielding miscues and untimely hitting did the Tigers in, as much as our great pitching and timely hitting helped us. Baseball purists will lament that the two best teams didn't play in this series but it was a thrilling series nonetheless. The Tigers players lacked the Series experience that many of our players had and it showed. However, they have a great base of talent for the future and will be competitive for many years to come.
The Cardinals' history with 3-1 leads wasn't good. I really didn't want us to go back to Detroit to try and win the series. It would have been so much harder!
As I am employed at St. Louis' Only Local Metropolitan Daily Newspaper, I got a behind-the-scenes look at our preparations for the various scenarios that could play out. Our circulation, news, and production managers huddled often to coordinate strategy. Strategy, as in 'how would we print a Saturday paper, an early Sunday paper, and a Stadium Extra edition, if needed, all in the same night, at almost the same time?" Suffice it to say, all six of our printing presses are in operation tonight. The Stadium Extra edition got major display time as our local television news crews did their live spots after the game, so our management will be very happy about that.
An 83-79 baseball team that endured two eight-game losing streaks, and stumbled into the postseason courtesy of the Atlanta Braves wins the World Series. They win it with a skillet-handed right fielder and several players with holes in their swings. Who else would you give the MVP award to but David Eckstein? He's the 2006 edition of Rex Hudler. And did anyone notice that our heroic slugger Albert Pujols didn't do too much at the plate during the series? Gotta hand it to our starting pitchers - The Two Jeffs, Weaver and Suppan, both pitched unbelieveably well, our rookie starter flashed his potential at just the right time, and our ace Carp finally got the Series experience he missed two years ago. Unbelievable.
Congratulations to the Cardinals.
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