Another season of promise

Happy Opening Day!  This is the day when irrational fans around the world still cling to the belief that their favorite baseball team has a realistic chance to win it all this season.  For those of us who love and follow the St. Louis Cardinals however, the promise of a contending season is legitimate.  Year after year, the Cardinals regroup and reload, and then fight down to the wire in September to try and make it another Red October in St. Louis.  And more often than not, they succeed.  Since the new ownership group led by Bill DeWitt Jr. took over from the A-B Brewery before the 1996 season, the Cardinals have more post-season appearances (10) than any other National League team.  And let’s not forget those two World Championship trophies in 2006 and 2011.  Even in the years where they fall short of the playoffs, they usually keep hope alive until well into September.  Only once in the last thirteen seasons have the Cardinals finished with a losing record (78-84 in 2007).

Most teams flourish for awhile, and then rebuild.  And while they are rebuilding, they struggle for a number of years until they can find the right mix of young talent and veteran leadership to lead them back to the mountaintop.  The Mets are going through that now with four losing seasons in a row.  The Reds are riding a peak right now with a very talented ball club, but they went without a winning record for ten straight years from 2000 thru 2009.  The window of opportunity seems about to close for the current crop of Phillies.  The Red Sox and the Yankees are both old and teetering on the edge of the baseball fiscal cliff.

Then there are the Pittsburgh Pirates who are still looking for their first winning season since 1992.  And the Houston Astros are so bad right now, they had to take up residence in a new league this year.  And of course there are the lovable Chicago Cubs (does 1908 ring a bell?)   Or, a team could also try the unique business model offered up by the Miami Marlins . . . buy every star player you can get your hands on and try to win it all in one year; then blow it up the following winter and go back to square one for the next ten years before trying it all again.

But when you talk of the St. Louis Cardinals, you speak of history.  And tradition.  Decade after decade of excellence.  Eleven world championships.  Heck, they’ve made nine World Series appearances in my life time alone.  We were raised on stories of Hornsby, Frisch, Marion, Medwick, Dean, Slaughter, Schoendienst and the great Stan the Man Musial.  Some of us were lucky enough to watch the next generation of heroes . . . Gibson, Brock, Cepeda, Smith, Tudor, Clark, McGee, Sutter.  Gussie and Whitey.  Harry Caray and Jack Buck and Mike Shannon.  And the recent past has been just as strong with Pujols, Rolen, Edmonds, Eckstein, LaRussa, and Carpenter. 

This season’s team is being dismissed as being good, but not great.  A little flawed, already beat-up, and way too young.  No national writer is picking them to win the division.  After all, the Reds won 97 games last year so they must be ready to tee up another division title this year.  But this Cardinals core is strong and feisty, and poised for a lot of success this year.  Even with the injuries that have probably ended the careers of Rafael Furcal and Chris Carpenter, this team has a lot of young depth.  Veterans Matt Holliday and Carlos Beltran are surrounded by the likes of Jon Jay, Allen Craig, David Freese, and of course Yadier Molina.  The rotation has a huge upside with Adam Wainwright primed for a Cy Young caliber comeback; and a healthy Jaime Garcia, Jake Westbrook, and the young arms of Lance Lynn and Shelby Miller to support him.  The bullpen is stocked with hard throwing young arms.  The Baby Birds may not finish the 2013 season with the desired result . . . “12 in ’13” . . . but it’s a good bet that come the end of September we’ll be staring at the promise of October baseball in St. Louis.  And that’s just fine with me.

And these Cards are not just going all in for this season; they’re set up for the long haul.  With the current young core of players, and budding stars Rosenthal, Kelly, Taveras, Wacha, Wong, Martinez and others, the future is bright under the shadow of the Gateway Arch.  Last year my son thanked me for raising him in St. Louis and allowing him the good fortune of being a Cardinals fan.  It is after all, Baseball Heaven!