Not a very impressive performance by the World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals. Hampered by poor pitching and many injuries, they couldn’t even muster a winning season in 2007. But, on a positive note, they did end the season with a five-game winning streak, including a sweep of the Pirates.
But the Cardinals are still the best baseball team with the best fans in all of baseball, and I’m sure they’ll be back in the post-season in 2008. They always bounce back. And they’ll be ready to get World Series victory #11 next year at this time.
Looking forward to Spring Training 2008. For now, it’s on to football season.
The St. Louis Cardinals have great fans that love their team and on the whole have a great understanding and appreciation for the game.
For their sake, I hope LaRussa and Jocketty stick around. I also hope the greedy ownership takes some of the massive revenue from the new ballpark and the new radio deal and invests it payroll instead of cutting it like it did the year after winning the World Series.
In all truthiness, I also hope the Cardinals lose all their games to the Cubs next year.
But I hope the fans get the team they deserve next year, which is better than what happened this year.
I just about busted a gut reading Jonathan saying he hopes the Cards lose all of the games to the Cubs. I couldn’t agree more. BUT, if you check your archives, you will find that I was fully supportive of the Cardinals last year during their post-season play to the ire of most Cub fans.
The Cardinals have great fans, but it’s hard to make a case that there are any fans, in any sport, that compare wtih Cubs fans. Perhaps because it has been so long between pennants, let alone championships, there is a mystical thing to Cubs fans. Cardinal fans celebrated their Championship last year, like most fans do. If the Cubs win the World Series, many Cub fans will cry tears of celebration. It’s been 99 years in the desert. Maybe it’s finally our time.
Yes, PI, you are one of the few reasonable Cubs fans I’ve met. 🙂
I will say this for them — they won the division fair and square. If I had to choose, I’d rather see the Cubs win the pennant than a wild-card team any day.
Mouse, I agree that Cubs fans are loyal… in a co-dependent, battered-spouse kind of way. 😉
And, per usual, they are a team located in Missouri, and we are in Central Illinois. I’ve never fully understood it… other than so many “fans” only want to root for teams that tend to win more often.
Speaking as a Cub fan, I root for them no matter how rotten they are. That being said, if the Cubs do not make the playoffs (which, obviously, has been quite often), I tend to pull for the Cardinals because they are the closest National League team besides the Cubbies.
That also being said, I continue to despise the designated hitter set-up in the American League. You would think after 30 odd years I would have gotten used to it. It still stinks. Why not go further and put the best 9 fielders in the field, and put the best 9 hitters up to bat? They’ll never change it… but they should. It’s as rotten of a change as there has ever been in any type of sporting endeavor… except, perhaps, for the BCS…
For my neighbor’s sake, I’m also pulling for the Rockies. I told him if we meet up in the NLCS, we’re going to Gormans because I want to see him cheer for the Rockies in a bar full of Cub fans.
The NL is wide open and the Cubs may have the best NL roster.
This is a critical offseason for the Cards. Will ownership keep LaRussa and Jocketty, increase payroll, and try to field a contender next year? Or will they go into rebuilding mode with a new manager? If contending is the goal they better bump up payroll by $15mm to compete with the Cubs and their willingness to spend.