What A Team...What A Time....What A Town

It's late, and this is hardly a real post, but for those who love me enough to make it possible for me to be here, and for those who have been worried about my game being rained out on Wednesday, and for those converts to Cardinal Nation, I wanted to post a brief update.

I flew up Wednesday morning for Game 4 Wednesday night. The Cards were leading the Tigers 2-1 in the Series. It drizzled all afternoon. We got to the park at about 6 Wednesday night all geared up for rain....silk long underwear, wool socks, gloves and glove liners, Gore-Tex jackets, waterproof pants over our jeans, towels to wipe down our seats, umbrellas, we were PREPARED. First pitch was scheduled for 7:25. They told us over the loudspeaker at 7:00 that the first pitch had been postponed and no official start time was known. So we waited. And waited. Heard rumors from the thousands swirling around inside the stadium. Got text messages from all of you at home hearing things on TV. Start time at 8, 8:45, then 9:15. At 9:20 it was finally announced that the game was a rainout. I won't get into my belief that the game could easily have been played in the sort of rain that was falling, but that network television had a huge part to play in this. I won't go there...the commercialization of basball and all of that is a post for another day. So they tell us that our tickets from Wednesday night (game 4), will now be good for a makeup game on Friday.

So all of you who love me more than I deserve told me I must stay here long enough to go to the game Friday. You arrange plans to care for my children and send me fabulous text messages and are so good to me. I spend much of the day with Mary Catherine. Papa calls me at 2:30 in the afternoon and says, guess what? One of the clients he was taking to the game tonight is sick, do I want to go? Needless to say, because all of you good Cardinal fans know, the boys won tonight. It was really something. It was a close game. We played hard nine innings. The place was electric. I kept looking out over the stadium from my perch in the luxury box (such a nice way to watch a game) thinking I needed to store these mental snapshots in my memory in a place I would never lose them. It was so wonderful.

In the box with us were a few couples from Detroit. The women kept saying with astonishment, "Have you ever seen so much red in your life?" Which is true...it is a veritable sea of red. But come on...it isn't like the burning bush was there in the middle of the diamond or anything...we are passionate about our baseball and we dont mind showing it. I don't know how it works in Detroit, but anyway...We were nice to them and let them have some time alone to cry after the game (they really did).

Em, you will be pleased to hear that they played the Budweiser song numerous times. As well as Ode to Joy, which was a new one for me at the ballpark.

We are now up three games to one. I have a ticket for tomorrow (now tonight's) game. We could win it all...I could be there...I almost don't want to think that, but I can't help it. It is supposed to rain 2+ inches in the Lou tomorrow. The temp is supposed to drop from 50F tomorrow morning until it hits the low 40s tomorrow night. It is supposed to be windy. It sounds like pretty miserable conditions. But if we can win the World Series tomorrow night for the first time in 24 years, I will endure all sorts of hell. I was 8 last time I went to a Series game. I'm quite sure I didn't appreciate it quite like I have this week.

I'll keep you all updated w.r.t. the weather and the game tomorrow. If you are watching (as if you wouldn't), I'll be about 5 rows behind the Cards' dugout. The top of the dugout is painted to say "WORLD SERIES", and our seats are right behind the "O." Papa wears a yellow Gore-Tex raincoat, and me a red one. OH, and I'll be hard to miss given that my mother bought me a rhinestone-encrusted baseball cap. I wish I was kidding about this.

Love to you all...I will cheer for all of us.