Tag: Cardinals

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Can’t-Miss Cards?

Jordan Walker (photo by Wes Hale)

Since the St. Louis Cardinals last played in the World Series (2013), the franchise has suited up six prospects of the “can’t miss” variety. These are the future stars who become centerpieces in annual postseason runs. Alas, the six players share two distinct similarities: each has played for the Memphis Redbirds, and each has, in fact, missed.

Oscar Taveras was the Cardinals’ Minor League Player of the Year with Double-A Springfield in 2012. By the time he suited up for Memphis in 2013, Taveras was the second-ranked prospect in all of baseball. A line-drive machine from the left side of the plate, Taveras battled injuries over two seasons with the Redbirds, but still hit .306 over 46 games in 2013 and .318 over 62 games before being promoted to St. Louis in 2014. He hit a game-tying home run in the only game St. Louis would win in the 2014 National League Championship Series, then died with his girlfriend in a car accident two weeks later. Taveras was intoxicated behind the wheel.

Michael Wacha needed only 15 games at the Triple-A level to convince the Cardinals he was ready for a big-league rotation. After posting a 2.65 ERA for Memphis in 2013, Wacha joined St. Louis and came within an out of no-hitting the Washington Nationals in only his ninth major-league start. He earned MVP honors in the 2013 NLCS, twice beating the Dodgers and not allowing a run in 13 innings. He battled injuries but remained a part of the Cardinals’ rotation for six years, winning 17 games in 2015. Since departing as a free agent after the 2019 season, Wacha has pitched for five different clubs. Now with the Kansas City Royals, he’s four wins shy of 100 for his career.

Alex Reyes was the Cardinals’ Minor League Pitcher of the Year in 2015 at the tender age of 21. He struck out 93 hitters in only 65 innings for Memphis in 2016 before a late-season promotion to St. Louis, where he posted a 1.57 ERA over 46 innings. But Reyes only pitched in 20 games over the next four years, sidelined by one significant arm injury after another. He made the National League All-Star team as a closer in 2021, a season he topped for the Cardinals with 29 saves. But he hasn’t thrown a pitch since surrendering a walk-off homer in a wild-card loss to the Dodgers to end that season.

Jack Flaherty was the Cardinals’ Minor League Pitcher of the Year in 2017 when he helped the Redbirds to a Pacific Coast League championship by going 7-2 with a 2.74 ERA over 15 starts. He was a certified big-league ace two years later, posting a 2.75 ERA and the most strikeouts (231) in a season for St. Louis since Hall of Famer Bob Gibson retired in 1975. But by 2023, Flaherty was a trade piece, going to Baltimore in return for current Redbirds infielder Cesar Prieto.

Dylan Carlson was the Cardinals’ Minor League Player of the Year in 2019 when he hit .361 over 18 games with Memphis after a September promotion from Springfield. He lost what would have been a full season at Memphis to the 2020 pandemic, but still took over right field in St. Louis in 2021. Carlson finished third in National League Rookie of the Year voting that season after hitting .266 with 18 home runs and 65 RBIs. But injuries have diminished his production. Carlson batted .198 over 59 games this season before the Cardinals traded him to Tampa Bay last week.


It’s unfair to include 22-year-old Jordan Walker among this group of fallen stars, but you can’t help but wonder (if not worry) with Walker posting pedestrian numbers (.252, 7 home runs through Sunday) against Triple-A pitching after leading the Cardinals with a .276 average a year ago. Prospects are fun to rank and track as they rapidly climb the minor-league ladder. But sustainable success in the big leagues remains the goal. And for a franchise now more than a decade removed from its last National League pennant, “can’t miss” must be reconsidered.

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Walker in Memphis

Jordan Walker (Photo: Wes Hale)

Few players have risen through the St. Louis Cardinals’ minor-league system with the star power of Jordan Walker. Twice the franchise’s Minor League Player of the Year, Walker entered the 2023 season as the fourth-ranked prospect throughout the minor leagues according to Baseball America. And Walker had yet to turn 21. He made the Cardinals’ Opening Day roster having never played a game at the Triple A level and proceeded to start his big-league career with a 12-game hitting streak. Not the stuff of typical rookies.

Cut to the present and Walker finds himself midway through a 2024 season that hasn’t gone precisely to plan. He again started in right field for St. Louis on Opening Day, but struggled in April with a .155 batting average and no home runs through 20 games. (In 117 games as a rookie with the Cardinals, Walker batted .276 with a .445 slugging percentage and 16 home runs.) On April 24th, the Cardinals sent Walker to Memphis to fine-tune his swing and recharge for his sophomore campaign. Over 43 games with the Redbirds, Jordan has batted .264, slugged .402, and hit three home runs.

“I’m trying to relax,” says Walker. “I’ve shortened my stance a bit. So I’m not as rigid when I start my swing. I feel like I’m seeing the ball better.” How relaxed? Last Thursday, Walker took a nap during an optional team batting practice and proceeded to pick up three hits, including a homer, in a win over the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp. He also threw out a runner at the plate from right field.

Walker says he hasn’t had a conversation with Cardinals’ brass specifically about their expectations for his next promotion to the big club. But he knows it’s about the magic word for hitters at all levels: consistency. “If my swing is where it needs to be,” notes Walker, “if I’m driving the ball the way I’ve been recently, I should be fine. As long as I hit the ball hard, everything should work out.”

Had Walker played four years of college baseball, he’d just now be starting his pro career. Instead, he has a season in the big leagues on his resume, and the weight of expectations for the kind of career that takes a franchise closer to the World Series. Does that weight get heavy? “Maybe a little bit,” he says. “But I don’t think I’ve changed anything, approach-wise or mindset-wise. I just wasn’t as consistent with what got me success in the minor leagues, and what got me success last year. That’s the key. These pitchers are tough. Your swing can feel good, but if you get tough pitches, it’s always tough to hit. But I’m comfortable with my swing, I’m making good swing decisions, and I feel like I can drive the ball. With a simple approach, I’ll catch fire again. It’s an up-and-down game.”

Ben Johnson recently became only the third manager in Redbirds history to win 300 games, but he’s still getting to know Walker, who has now played a half-season, total, at the Triple A level. “With Jordan, it’s a matter of getting comfortable playing every day,” says Johnson. “He’s about to catch fire, any day now. And we’ll get him [back to St. Louis] soon.”

After a slow start, the Cardinals have played themselves into contention for a wild-card playoff spot. In addition to Walker’s absence, the team has suffered lengthy stays on the injured list for Tommy Edman, Lars Nootbaar, and Willson Contreras. That’s virtually half a batting order the club can infuse for the second half of the 2024 season. And it can be safely said, among the four, no one has a higher ceiling of potential than Jordan Walker. Greatness awaits.

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Prospecting at AZP

Victor Scott II (photo by Wes Hale)

Something is rotten in the state of St. Louis Cardinals baseball. The Memphis Redbirds’ parent club finished in last place in 2023, the first time in 33 years the proud franchise took on the scent of a cellar. Following some significant changes to the club’s starting pitching rotation, hopes were elevated for a better 2024, only to see the team open the season as though its collective wings had been clipped. There were injuries (three outfielders opened the season on the injured list), scoring droughts (the Cards endured a 12-game stretch in which they scored more than three runs exactly once), and generally dreadful play from both veterans (Paul Goldschmidt) and rising “stars” (Nolan Gorman). As Memorial Day nears, is there hope for fun summer days at the ballpark?

Memphis is playing a role, as it has since 1998 when the Redbirds arrived, in efforts to cure the Cardinals’ ills. Last year’s star rookie — right fielder Jordan Walker — opened the season with St. Louis but returned for some Triple-A development when his batting average plummeted to .155 after 20 games. Likewise, the franchise’s third-ranked prospect — center fielder Victor Scott II — started the season in the Cardinals’ batting order, but only because of those injuries to outfielders Tommy Edman, Dylan Carlson, and Lars Nootbaar. Scott batted .085 in 20 games before getting his ticket to Memphis for a first taste of Triple-A pitching.

Scott stole an eye-popping 94 bases last year, a season he split between Class-A Peoria and Double-A Springfield. He knows speed will be his meal ticket, as evidenced by the frequent bunts you’ll see from the 23-year-old Georgia native. Through 23 games with Memphis, Scott has stolen eight bases (and only been caught once). But his on-base percentage of .271 is about 80 points shy of what he’ll need to crack the Cardinals’ everyday lineup. While Scott will likely spend the summer with Memphis, look for Walker — batting .318 in 17 games for the Redbirds — to soon reclaim his place in right field for the Cardinals.

• The Cardinals acquired infielder Cesar Prieto at last year’s trade deadline in a deal that sent pitcher Jack Flaherty to Baltimore. Through Sunday, Prieto was batting .340 for the Redbirds with 27 RBIs and 27 runs scored. With five (!) St. Louis regulars batting under .240 and the club near the bottom of the National League in scoring, you gotta figure Prieto might have a place with the big club in the near future. (Veteran infielder Brandon Crawford is hitting .097 in a reserve role for St. Louis.)

• The hottest pitching prospect in the Cardinals’ system is 21-year-old righty Tink Hence, currently occupying a spot in the rotation at Double-A Springfield. In his latest start last Saturday, Hence struck out nine in six innings in a win over Midland. Should Hence show signs of growth in the coming weeks, he could make his Triple-A debut with Memphis shortly after his 22nd birthday (August 6th). With four of their starters in their mid-30s, St. Louis desperately needs a young arm (or three) to emerge, ready to retire big-league batters.

• Keep an eye on Luken Baker’s home run total. The Redbirds’ first-baseman has slammed 11 dingers through Sunday, giving him 65 for his career with Memphis. Baker needs 10 more to surpass Nick Stavinoha’s record of 74 (a standard established in 2011). 

• How quickly can a former Redbird impact the big club? If you like the modern WAR metric (a measure of a player’s overall impact, relative to an average player), the answer is less than two months. Rookie shortstop Masyn Winn — last year’s everyday shortstop with Memphis — is leading the Cardinals with 1.8 WAR. He also leads the club in stolen bases (7) and is near the top of the National League in defensive metrics for his position.

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Arm of Gold

Masyn Winn (photo courtesy Memphis Redbirds)

It was one of those rare plays you see on a baseball field that makes no impact in the box score . . . but remains unforgettable. On a Tuesday night in mid-April, the Memphis Redbirds were hosting the Indianapolis Indians at AutoZone Park. Playing second base for Memphis, Masyn Winn took a cutoff throw in short right field. An Indian base-runner was cruising home from third base, not so much as looking where the baseball might be. Winn turned and fired a heat-seeking spheroid to the catcher, who tagged the Indians’ runner . . . just after he touched home plate. The throw covered at least 140 feet, maybe 150. (For perspective, the distance from third base to first is 127 feet.) There was no “hump” in the throw. It arrived in the catcher’s mitt shoulder height, precisely where Winn released it. And it arrived there fast.

“A lot of guys aren’t running anymore,” notes Winn with a grin sly beyond his years. “Coaches don’t send them. [My arm] is what I’m known for. But sometimes it still catches guys by surprise. Most [infielders] would just eat that ball, but I thought I had a chance.” 

Merely 21 years old and primarily a shortstop, Winn is the 48th-ranked prospect in his sport according to Baseball America. He’s building toward a future in the middle infield despite having a right arm that would be the envy of many players who occupy the pitcher’s mound. (Four years ago, as a junior at Kingwood High School in Texas, Winn posted a 13-0 record as a pitcher with a 0.67 ERA and 117 strikeouts in 76 innings.) He made headlines in the 2022 All-Star Futures Game by hitting 100 mph on the radar gun with a throw from shortstop to first base. That cannon of an arm, though, is a weapon that must be carefully utilized.

Winn first recognized his extraordinary arm strength at age 12 when he made a traveling national team. “Sophomore year in high school, I was throwing mid-90s,” he says. “I knew it was serious then. But I was a pitcher at the time, so didn’t really consider what I could do from short.” In Winn’s first full season as a pro (Class A in 2021), he made 24 errors in 98 games, most of them of the throwing variety. Accuracy, it seems, can improve with a reduction in velocity. Winn credits a longtime Cardinals instructor — newly elected to the franchise’s Hall of Fame — with helping him dial back the power of his right arm when it can benefit the team.

“Defensively, Jose Oquendo may be the best in the world,” says Winn. “He told me that I don’t have to show off my arm with every throw. I can go 80 or 85 percent and still make the play, then dial it up when I need to. Shortening up my motion and throwing like a shortstop [as opposed to a pitcher’s motion].”

At the plate, Winn is focused on making better contact, becoming a catalyst at the top of the Redbirds’ batting order. “I started off the year striking out a lot, so I’m trying to hit more balls on the barrel [of the bat],” he says. “It’s an approach thing. We’ve got sluggers like Jordan Walker, Luken Baker, and Moises Gomez. I’ll let them hit the bombs. I need to be more direct to the ball, get my singles, steal, get a double. Know my game.”

Winn is climbing toward a crowded middle infield with the St. Louis Cardinals. Paul DeJong has reclaimed the shortstop position after a rehab stint with Memphis. Tommy Edman (a Gold Glove winner at second base), Brendan Donovan (utility Gold Glove in 2022), and Nolan Gorman are also in the mix. “I’m gonna play a long time,” notes Winn. “I don’t need to rush anything. I’m enjoying every step. I can’t wait to be [in the big leagues], but I’m having a lot of fun. I get to play baseball.”

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Baseball’s Back! (Right?)

CREDIT: Taka Yanagimoto / St. Louis Cardinals

As Major League Baseball opens the first made-for-TV season in the sport’s history, 30 clubs will be measured by four components: pitching, hitting, fielding, and what might best be described as bubble management. The defending-champion Washington Nationals return the best one-two pitching punch in the game: Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg. They have one of the most exciting young sluggers in the game in Juan Soto. They lost a slick-fielding third baseman when Anthony Rendon departed for the Los Angeles Angels. But here’s the question that may decide the champs’ 2020 fate: How antisocial are the Nats?
Taka Yanagimoto / St. Louis Cardinals

Mike Shildt

This is where we are in the age of coronavirus. A baseball team’s starting rotation will only be as strong as the five men in that group are at self-isolation. An urge to stray outside a team’s “bubble” — whether at home or on the road — could prove catastrophic when “quarantine” and “contact-tracing” become part of the box scores we check in the morning. There’s never been required teamwork quite like this. How smoothly your favorite team’s shortstop and second baseman turn the pivot may be less important than how quickly your outfielders don their masks upon leaving the ballpark.

AutoZone Park will remain dormant, as the St. Louis Cardinals’ minor-league training camp will be housed in Springfield, Missouri (home of the franchise’s Double-A club). But several former Memphis Redbirds — including skipper Mike Shildt, the 2019 National League Manager of the Year — will help determine if the upcoming 60-game season will be memorable for reasons beyond its brevity. Here are seven to watch.

Yadier Molina — The 38-year-old catcher’s remarkable streak of 15 consecutive seasons with more than 100 games behind the plate will come to an end, but Molina has a pair of significant milestones within reach. He needs 37 hits to reach 2,000 for his career, a number that should all but punch a Hall of Fame ticket for the nine-time Gold Glove winner. And when he plays his 17th game this season, he’ll become only the third man — after Stan Musial and Lou Brock — to play 2,000 games for the Cardinals.

Adam Wainwright — Like Molina, Wainwright — who turns 39 in August — is climbing some significant charts in the record book. With two wins, Wainwright would move past Bob Forsch (163) for third place on the Cardinals’ career chart. Should he start six games with Molina behind the plate, the two will climb into sixth all-time for games played as battery mates. (Six more would give them 271, the most in a half-century.)

Jack Flaherty — In a regular season squeezed down to two months, pitching will be more of a premium than ever, and Flaherty enters the season as the Cardinals’ unquestioned ace. Still only 24 years old, Flaherty is coming off a season in which he struck out 231 hitters, the most by a Cardinal since Hall of Famer Bob Gibson in 1970. A team simply cannot endure a losing streak in the abbreviated campaign, and Flaherty would appear to be the antidote for such.

Tommy Edman — The 25-year-old Edman can be classified as a throwback player, a utility man — remember that tag? — who can play six positions, bat at the top or bottom of the batting order, and bring speed to both the base paths and the field. Look for Edman to play every day, but check the lineup for exactly where.

Paul DeJong — If you asked me to identify a player most likely to be a Cardinal in the year 2030, I’d go with DeJong (who turns 27 next month). After less than two months in Memphis, DeJong took over at shortstop for the Cardinals in 2017 and has slugged 74 home runs in the three seasons since (30 last year). He’s emerged as a strong fielder and was the Cardinals’ lone representative in the 2019 All-Star Game. If he can cut down on the strikeouts (149 last season), DeJong has several more All-Star trips in his future.

Matt Carpenter — The designated hitter has arrived in the National League, and Carpenter could be the man to make it a position of impact for St. Louis. Having bounced from second base to third and over to first since 2012, Carpenter has been a hitter without a position to call his own. Having lost 89 RBIs when Marcell Ozuna departed for Atlanta, the Cardinals desperately need the 34-year-old Carpenter to find his All-Star form at the plate. After drilling 36 homers and finishing ninth in MVP voting after the 2018 season, Carpenter slumped to a slash line of .226/.334/.392 (with 15 homers) in 2019.

Carlos Martinez — The team’s ace as a starter merely three years ago, Martinez took over closer duty last season when Jordan Hicks went down for Tommy John surgery. While he’d like to start again, Martinez would bring a degree of ninth-inning certainty to a team that will, presumably, play a lot of low-scoring games.

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Grizzlies, Cavs, Cardinals: Wounded Hopes

Injuries in teams sports are like pages ripped from a book you haven’t yet finished. The more significant the player, the more pages are shredded. The later in the season a player goes down, the closer to the book’s end you discover the missing pages. It’s maddening, disappointing, vexing . . . as many negative descriptors as you choose. Bottom line: When players are sidelined by injury, the story we read — the one that enters the history books — is altered permanently.

Maybe the Memphis Grizzlies, Cleveland Cavaliers, or St. Louis Cardinals (or a combination involving one of the NBA teams) wins a championship in 2015. More than likely, though, these three teams will fall short of the goal every pro team lists above all others. Fan bases for each franchise will find significant pages missing from this year’s metaphorical book.

The Grizzlies seemed to be peaking at precisely the right time after a lackluster conclusion to their regular season. On their way to a 3-0 lead against the Portland Trail Blazers, the Griz had the 67-win Golden State Warriors in their sights for a second-round battle that would test the entire concept of “grit and grind” basketball. Then C.J. McCollum’s elbow met Mike Conley’s face. The Memphis point guard left Game 3 in the third quarter and underwent surgery to repair facial fractures last Monday.

The Griz finished off the Blazers in five games to land that slot opposite Golden State in the bracket. With Conley in street clothes (swelling still visible on his face), Memphis traveled to Oakland and took a beating in Game 1 of it series with the Warriors Sunday afternoon. It’s hard to imagine one player — not named Jordan or Bird — erasing the Grizzlies’ 15-point margin of defeat, but the story would have read differently. It would have been the story as intended.

The Grizzlies aren’t alone. With Kevin Love sidelined by a shoulder injury, the Cleveland Cavaliers will find what amounts to a chapter missing from their 2014-15 book. And turning to baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals will tear out every fifth page this season with ace Adam Wainwright shelved by a torn Achilles’ tendon. Maybe LeBron James is enough for the Cavs to reach the NBA Finals anyway. And the Cardinals have a precedent for winning the World Series without Wainwright (2011). Missing pages don’t necessarily mean a book ends sadly.

Here’s hoping Grizzlies coach Dave Joerger concocts a scheme to steal a win when Game 2 is played Tuesday night. (Anyone seen Jordan Adams recently?) His team’s fate rests on how those missing pages are replaced.

• In evaluating the eight remaining teams in the NBA playoffs, remember the Superstar Rule. Since 1980, every champion except the 2003-04 Detroit Pistons has featured a player with multiple first-team All-NBA selections on his resume. Only three teams vying for this year’s title qualify: the Cavaliers (James), the Clippers (Chris Paul), and the Rockets (Dwight Howard). The Warriors’ Steph Curry has multiple first-team selections in his future, but this year’s will be his first.

• With San Antonio and Dallas eliminated, the Western Conference will be represented in the Finals by a team that hasn’t been that far in at least 20 years, if ever. (Houston won the 1995 title.) This is healthy for a sport dominated in June by a precious few brands.

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News News Feature

Extra Innings

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

From the outside looking in, baseball is the most cliché-riddled institution in America.

So it is that when former big-league ballplayer and now Memphian John Denny says he played “for love of the game,” he is, strictly speaking, using a cliché, but he himself is not a cliché; he’s worthy of a pass (and no one cry foul).

Denny has had a charmed life in baseball. He came up with the St. Louis Cardinals organization, with his first full season coming in 1975. In 1983, with the Philadelphia Phillies, Denny posted career bests: 19-6, 2.37 ERA, 150 strikeouts, winner of the Cy Young Award for best pitcher, pitched in and won game one of the World Series.

Following the season, Denny was invited to a state dinner at the White House. Included at his table of eight were President Ronald Reagan, the Queen of Nepal, Carol Burnett, the secretary of the Treasury, and a general.

All told, Denny played 13 seasons for the Cardinals, Cleveland Indians, Phillies, and Cincinnati Reds, retiring in 1986. In 2001, as a rehab pitching coach with the Arizona Diamondbacks, he won a World Series ring.

A few years ago, Denny moved to Memphis. Even this, it must be admitted, seems scripted: “I met this girl on the steps of Graceland,” Denny says.

Now Denny is getting back into the swing of things. At his school, JAD Baseball Experience, Denny instructs students of all ages on the finer points — and some not so fine — of pitching. As a teacher, Denny is part anatomist, part psychologist, part friend, part father to his students.

“I want them to understand that this is an art form. This is something that not everyone can do. It takes a real commitment to spend the time to do something right.”

Denny’s coaching stint with the Diamondbacks was a key stepping-stone to his current career in Memphis. “I felt like I had a talent to teach pitching,” he says. “Some of these [Diamondbacks] guys I had to rebuild. It seemed like I was able to see things and do things with them that other guys couldn’t.”

What it all comes down to is focus, he says: “Focus is certainly a common denominator that all players at the professional level need to have. You can’t be distracted by what you’re trying to do. If you are, you’re going to have a problem.”

For instance, take game one of the 1983 World Series in Baltimore. President Reagan was in attendance, and Denny had just given up a first-inning home run. “The crowd noise was so intense,” he says. “I could feel the vibration in the pitcher’s mound.” Denny recovered to win the game.

Denny’s decision to stay in the game as an instructor, long after playing, is owed in some part to early teammates, including Joe Torre, Tim McCarver, Bob Gibson, and Lou Brock. “Brock was one of the best teammates I ever had,” Denny says. “He took me under his wing. One time he said, ‘John, you need to learn to play the game within the boundaries of fair play.’ There’s an unwritten code of ethics. You act very professional. Be dignified, a class athlete, someone that people would respect.”

These principles, Denny feels, connect him to an earlier time in baseball history. Torre, McCarver, Gibson, and Brock “learned from the players [who started] in the 1930s and ’40s,” Denny says. “What was common in those players was a real passion and love for the game. It wasn’t so much money and notoriety; it was just loving the game.

“It has been a way of life. I can do it now in a different capacity and try to pass some of it on, because it means that much to me. [Baseball is] a game you’re set up to fail. Maybe that’s the beauty of it: It’s a game you’re set up to fail, but because of that, you still want to try to prove that you’re not going to.”

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Sports Sports Feature

St. Louis Spirit

CREDIT: AP

Let’s start this week with a time warp. Think back to when you were 13 years old. Try and pinpoint a moment from your 14th year that you can close your eyes and envision today. The setting, the time of day, the people you may have been with.

I was 13 in 1982 when the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series in seven games over the Milwaukee Brewers (Harvey’s Wall-Bangers, that crew was called). That was the Cardinals’ last world championship until they shocked the sports world two weeks ago by upsetting the Detroit Tigers and winning the 2006 series after the fewest regular-season wins (83) by any champ, ever. I watched Game 7 of that ’82 Series in the living room of my family’s apartment in Northfield, Vermont. It was a Wednesday night, when Bruce Sutter — just this year inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame — struck out Gorman Thomas to clinch the championship. It was the ninth world championship for St. Louis but the first of my lifetime and the franchise’s first in 15 years, what seemed like an eternity at the time for my father.

I remember trying to out-smile my dad as a mob of fans stormed the artificial turf at “old” Busch Stadium. And I remember thinking, surely, this would be the first of many such celebrations.

It was twenty-four years — almost a quarter century — before my heart again pounded the way it did on October 20, 1982. We don’t get all that many 24-year cycles in a lifetime, so I’ll be relishing the Cardinals’ 10th championship for as long as I can share the memory. But how different, this celebration.

What’s happened since 1982 — age 13 for me — besides the hundreds of Cardinal games I’ve seen and listened to? High school happened. College. A wedding. More than 130 issues of Memphis magazine hitting the streets with my name next to “managing editor” on the masthead. Best of all, I’ve welcomed two daughters since 1982. (They’ll remember this World Series, let me assure you.) And worst, my dad isn’t here this time to try and match my smile.

Amid the glow of merely winning, Dad would love the improbability of this championship. St. Louis managed to win the World Series in five games with merely two RBIs from baseball’s “perfect” player, Albert Pujols. (Last week, the Elias Sports Bureau announced that Pujols is only the sixth player since their ranking system was devised in 1981 to score a perfect 100 for a season.) How perfectly appropriate that the Series MVP was a player — 5’7″ shortstop David Eckstein — whom Pujols could eat for lunch. Smallest player on the field; the player with the fewest “tools”; a castoff from a team with which he won a championship, but a team that felt it could improve without him. Nice way to acquire your first new car, Mr. Eckstein. (That yellow beauty, though, needs a coat of red paint.)

This is the second of at least 52 weeks during which the words “St. Louis Cardinals” must be prefaced by “world champion.” The joy I recall from my days as an 8th-grader has lost some context as I’ve gained adulthood and all the rites that come with it. I wonder, with a pounding but heavy heart, just where my dad might be now, knowing how happy this long-awaited victory would make him. This is where I gain a little faith and, with inspiration from a certain Disney movie starring Danny Glover — a Murtaugh, it should be noted, in another of his popular roles — a speculative theory on what happened as the Tigers botched one play after another in the sloppiest Fall Classic we’ll see in years: Perhaps, Cardinal Nation, just perhaps, St. Louis had a little help from its own angel in the outfield. Imagination — no, belief — has a life span much longer than 13 years.

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News

Summer Bummer

Seeing the Cardinals in the World Series brings back a painful memory. No, I don’t mean when they got swept in the 2004 series by the Red Sox. And I don’t mean their clinching loss, at home, to the Astros in last year’s National League Championship Series. And I don’t mean when the 2002 team was taken out by the Giants. Or when Arizona scored in the bottom of the ninth in Game 5 of the 2001 playoffs to eliminate them.

What I’m referring to is one of those experiences that, even 13 years later, still makes me shudder. Almost every time I see a Cardinals player in their home white uniforms, a part of me winces at what could have been.

It was the summer of 1993. I was on the road a lot back then. I had decided that, wherever I was, life was more interesting somewhere else — no doubt prime material for a therapist to work on, but my way of dealing with it was to keep moving. Travel was among my myriad addictions, many of which I pursued at my favorite destination: Grateful Dead concerts.

The great thing about a Dead show, other than that they were my favorite band and there were thousands of other people there for the same reason, was the collective sense of craziness. It was the safest place in the world to get loaded and weird, because nobody among the throngs could ever look at you and say, “Dude, you’re high” or “Dude, you’re weird” — not when there are naked people walking around, and people dressed as clowns, and people sucking balloons of nitrous oxide, and people offering to adjust your chi for a hit of pot, and … well, you get the idea.

I was in the middle of one of these manic scenes, somewhere in the Midwest, possibly Indianapolis. Details are a bit fuzzy. And somewhere in the surging sea of insanity I saw a familiar face, an old St. Louis friend from my college days. Let’s say his name was Bill, because it just might be that he’s now an elected official somewhere in these great United States who doesn’t want everybody to know that he once roamed the Midwest in search of places to get loaded and weird.

We were all talking about how great it was that very soon the Dead would be playing in St. Louis, and I mentioned that I might go to a ballgame while I was there. One of Bill’s buds says, “Hey, you should give me a call. My sister knows Ozzie Smith. I can set you up with some tickets.” (Ozzie Smith, for you younger folks, was the Derek Jeter of his day, and if you don’t know who Derek Jeter is, please stop reading now.)

The thing is, somebody you’ve never met saying to you, in a Dead-show parking lot, that they know Ozzie Smith and can hook you up with tickets is really no more weird, or even memorable than, say, somebody running a disco in the parking lot after the show, or a school bus painted in Day-Glo colors, or people passing around an invisible “energy ball,” or … well, again, you get the idea.

In other words, it didn’t occur to me that, upon arriving in St. Louis, I should actually call this guy and say, “Gimme those tickets!”

We got to St. Louis on a Sunday, and some friends and I went to the game. We got cheap seats in the outfield, and the Mets killed the Cards, 10-3. We were so far away from the action (and so, um, loaded and weird) that just now I looked up the game on baseball-reference.com and realized Dwight Gooden pitched 7 innings for the Mets — which makes the story even worse, as you’ll soon see.

The next night at the St. Louis show, out of all the freaky faces flying around, the first one I see is the Ozzie guy, and he is pissed. “Dude!” he says, “What happened to you? I had Ozzie’s tickets for you at will call!”

Even now, after writing that, I have to stare at the words: Ozzie’s tickets. At will call. For me.

Turns out his sister was Ozzie Smith’s agent, and apparently in my foggy behavior I had told the guy I’d call, and so four seats, Ozzie Smith’s seats, front row, right behind home plate, under my name, with Dwight freaking Gooden on the mound … went unclaimed. With me, the idiot, loaded, sitting in the bleachers watching little mini-baseball players (mostly Mets) run around the bases.

The Cardinals won the World Series this year, with me rooting for them. But it was difficult to watch their home games with some peace of mind. I kept thinking about Ozzie Smith and those seats behind home plate.