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This is so marvelous that I'm all teared up. I can't believe we swept them. I also can't believe that now both of last year's World Series contenders have been eliminated.
I remember the Saturday we were in Chicago. Lady had been to the game Friday night. She was running around the backyard, working on the pool and mowing the grass. I was lying on the couch in the great room, waiting for the game to start. It was already 30 minutes past the time it was supposed to begin and I remembered thinking "How odd. If it were a rain delay, Fox would mention something about that." I stuck my head out the back door and asked Lady if she heard anything about the game possibly getting rained out. An hour later, her friend Donna called and I picked up.
"Liz? Did you hear the announcement?"
"Huhuh. What?"
"Turn on Channel 5."
I did. A player from the Cubs was speaking, obviously fighting back tears. "Due to a tragedy in the Cardinal family, the Commissioner has cancelled the game. Please be respectful of the team and their fans. Exit the stadium now. You will receive information about refunds at a later date."
"What the hell?" I asked.
"I don't know, babe, but this is something big."
Jack Buck had died a week earlier, and Lady and I were still mourning over that. If you're not from St. Louis, you probably don't understand. Both Lady, at 42, and I, at 25, grew up with Jack Buck and Cardinals baseball. We listened to games as young, young children, falling asleep to the lullaby of his voice broadcasting the game. The past few years had been odd, only hearing one or two Jack Buck games a season. I still remember feeling abandoned in 1996 when he retired from all but home games. Baseball games were literally not the same without him in the booth with Mike Shannon.
Neither Donna and her girlfriend Amy nor Lady and I were ready for the breakin during prime time television that night. "The Cardinals have just held a press conference from Chicago and have announced that pitcher, Darryl Kile, was found dead in his hotel room. After he was 20 minutes late for call this morning, the hotel manager opened his room and found him dead in his bed. He apparently died in his sleep. Chicago police do not suspect foul play. An autopsy, scheduled for the middle of next week, should reveal that Kile died of natural causes, the coroner suspects." The phone rang again. Donna. Lady and she sat in silence on the phone. None of the four of us could speak.
All tragedy for his wife and children and the team aside, I took the news especially hard. Every year I have a favorite player. Generally, I have the same favorite player from year to year, and I was ten the last time my favorite player was a pitcher. I have a love-hate relationship with the Cardinals pitching staff. As in, I hate them much more frequently than I love them, and I'm always trying to raise money to send shitty pitchers to Memphis myself. But watching preseason games this spring, I fell in love with Kile. I never said a bad word about him, which is highly unusual when it comes to me and Cardinal pitchers.
And now he was dead.
They carried his jersey out on the field as part of the celebration tonight. And they put his name and number up on the scoreboards as the fireworks were going off. Other scoreboards broadcasted, "That's a winner," a favorite phrase of Jack Buck.
I truly believe we'll win the World Series this year. Talent aside, we have the determination. Our players feel they owe it to Buck and Kile, and they're going to do what it takes to dedicate a winning season to both of them.
This is why our players and our management--and our city, at that--feel such anomosity toward the Pheonix DJ who placed an on-air prank call to Darryl Kile's wife on Thursday, asking her if she had a date for the game that evening. You could hear her choking up as she bruquely said no and disconnected.
We are a baseball town. Mark McGwire agreed and choose to take less money to stay in St. Louis than sign with any other team after his record-breaking season. Edgar Renteria, a World Series MVP from the 1997 Marlins-Indians series, has made similar comments. Tino Martinez, formerly of the Yankees, has said that only in St. Louis will fans give a standing ovation to a slumping all-star.
I was here at Oct 5, 2002 at 20:21
That was really sad when he died. Poor guy. Poor wife.
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