redbirdbrain

You know what I’ve been enjoying? The Mets subway campaigns all over the city. I know that nobody here is a Mets fan, which is great, but I have to say that the posters are generally pretty fun. (The Yankees don’t waste their money on lowly things like advertising, if you’re wondering. I’ve never seen a Yankee ad in the subway.) The Mets may suck, but they’ve got a savvier and less infuriating marketing strategy than the Cardinals do.

Basically, there are all sorts of slogans like “Get your tickets before the bandwagon does” and so on pasted all over the F train. I’d post pictures, but this is a Cardinals blog! (Also, you’re not supposed to take photos in the subway.)

Anyway, I’m trying to figure out why it’s been so much fun to see these ads popping up all over, and I suppose it’s because it just means that the season’s almost here. (Opening day is four days away! Can you believe it?) I will undoubtedly be going to fewer games at Shea and Yankee Stadium this year, but still. If I can’t live in St. Louis, it’s nice to live in such a baseball-obsessed, team-diverse city like New York.

ETA after today’s spring training game: I can’t believe I actually said something nice about the Mets. I take it back. They, and their marketing team, are pondscum!

… Because as an early birthday present, they’re splitting the price of Extra Innings with me.

It’s going to be One Blogtastic, Cardscastic, TV-spastic season! Provided that the Cardinals don’t stink up the joint and force me to turn into the Poor Man’s Red Hot Mama. There’s no way I’m up to her level. But nothing can get me down now! I get to see most of the Cardinals games this season! WOO!

As I told Bet, this is my favorite present since Mom bought me four box seat tickets when I was 11 or 12.

So I just got a DVR (cue the Hallelujah chorus) and I’ve been having fun with the search function. I keep finding all these fun games from last year on Fox Sports Midwest listed as playing over the next few days. Of course, I don’t have this channel, so it’s very depressing for me personally. However, the fact that I now have a DVR is a bit of a consolation prize.

For instance: yesterday morning I was innocently flipping channels when I came across the last half of a documentary of two Cardinals fans trying to get Jose Oquendo in the Hall of Fame. So I recorded it and called my Fellow Displaced St. Louisan Cardinals Chad, who seemed to know all about the Sklars as he went to high school with them, and more or less called me an idiot for not knowing about these dudes.

Whatever.

Anyway, I am indeed jealous of all you St. Louis residents who can watch FSN and go to the Busch open house and buy lofts on Washington Avenue (even if you’re too lazy to actually move into a loft and prefer to live in boring Affton even though you’re actually going to be WORKING on Washington Avenue and would totally eliminate your commute, Ms. You Know Who You Are). But you all are surely jealous of me, too, because I’ll be going to see the Cardinals play in Philly on April 5 and 6, then going home to see my first home game at New Busch on my birthday 1.5 weeks later.

All that and a DVR. So I guess I have nothing to complain about after all.

A friend of mine who works there linked me here - a nice little photo and audio gallery on the asap site. Enjoy!

I’m watching the 1987 World Series special on Espn Classic right now. They call it “There’s No Place Like Home” as the home team won every game. I honestly don’t remember it very well (what? I was 9!) and so forgive any classic moments that I shouldn’t have forgotten about.

My thoughts:

GAME 1
2:35 pm: Oh man, I forgot how much I hated those homer hankies.
2:38 pm: Aw, there’s Kirby Puckett! He was one of nine children? AWESOME.
2:40 pm: Effing Tom Gladden. Grand slam, indeed. Bleh. When is the series going to get back to St. Louis?
2:42 pm: The Twins had pretty classy uniforms, considering it was 1987 and all.

GAME 2
2:44 pm: Jose Oquendo was so skinny back then.
2:45 pm: Whoa, Gary Gaetti! He looks young.
2:46 pm: Ooookaaay. Cardinals are getting SPANKED. 7-0 Twins.
2:47 pm: Commercial before we go back to St. Louis. Speaking of commercials: Last night I saw an ad for that Game 6 movie. Who’s excited about this? I mean, it’s not as though the world needs another Red Sox movie, but 1986 was a particularly interesting postseason. And we’ll get to see all those Mets we despised so much!

GAME 3
2:49 pm: Auggie!
2:49 pm: Tuuuuuuuuudes!
2:49 pm: Ozzie flips!
2:51 pm: Why do the fans at Busch have hankies, too?
2:52 pm: NOW I’m having fun. There’s Vince Coleman! Nice job, Vince. 3-1 Cards.
2:54 pm: Vince in the post game interview, talking about his second chance to play in the World Series after the 1985 mishap. He looks a bit sleazy, though. And the announcers mention it’s the first World Series victory for the Cardinals since Game 5 the 1985 series. Hmm, so that means Game 5 of 1987 was our most recent victory. Argh. It puts me in mind of the Reds. Doesn’t it seem weird that they’ve won the World Series more recently than we have?

GAME 4
2:57 pm: Tom Lawless vs. Tom Viola. Three run homer. Heck yeah!
2:58 pm: Lawless hadn’t hit a home run since 1984? Seriously?
2:59 pm: This is way better than cleaning my room.

GAME 5
3:00 pm: They’re playing really cheesey music. Why can’t they just stick with the commentators.
3:01 pm: GO VINCE! Here’s some serious Whiteyball. Ozzie and Vince are all over the place. What a blast.
3:04 pm: Cards win. All downhill from here. Although this has never been as disturbing and scarring as 1985, so I don’t know why I’m complaining.

GAME 6
3:07 pm: There’s Tommy Herr, hitting homers in the Metrodome. Nice.
3:08 pm: Hey, Tudes is pitching agian! And the Cards are winning, which I didn’t remember at all. 4-2 Cards.
3:09 pm: Drat those Minnesota fans and their sneaky high decibels. Of course, the Rams fans kinda have the same schtick, so I shouldn’t complain. Twins tie up, score is 4-4.
3:11 pm: Have I mentioned how much I love watching Willie McGee? Dude can MOVE.
3:13 pm: Whitey is acting very Tony LaRussa here with all these pitching changes. Oh, buuuurn! Grand slam Twins! 10-5 Twins.

GAME 7
3:17 pm: Tim McCarver mentioning that every Cardinals World Series has gone to 7 games. Not anymore. Stupid Red Sox sweep.
3:20 pm: Go Willie! And I don’t remember Steve Lake at all. Even a little. Does that make me a bad fan? 2-0 Cardinals.
3:21 pm: Boy, Whitey looked tubby in that uniform. FUNNY.
3:23 pm: Twins tie the score. Rats, I was hoping it would turn out differently this time.
3:24 pm: Wow, the Cardinals are really hanging on here defensively. I didn’t remember this being such a good game. Too bad Viola’s breezing through all of the Cardinals hitters.
3:25 pm: Bottom of the sixth and the Cards are starting to crumble. The Twins pull ahead. Oh, the humanity!
3:27 pm: Yuck. Twins are the champions.
3:28 pm: What’s with this homer hankie song? It’s to the same tune of “My baby does the hanky panky”, but they’re singing “My baby waves the homer hankie”. If the Cardinals didn’t have several similar and equally embarrassing songs, I’d totally make fun of this.

–

Ok, that wasn’t entirely successful in terms of liveblogging, but then, I’m not particularly talented at liveblogging in the best of circumstances. And with seven games in 40 minutes, I have to say that there’s not much more to say about it than “Hey! It’s John Tudor!” and “Bummer! We didn’t win!”. But I do like liveblogging. It’s the start of the season, so get used to it, kiddos.

You know what I said about having all sorts of ideas for posts? This was technically true, but not the whole story. Apparently I DO have lots of ideas, but they’re all vague and halfhearted. So I keep writing here and there, thinking “Oh, I’ll just finish this up later”, and forgetting about it. I now have four (four!) different drafts of posts sitting in the queue.

Oh well. You’ll just have to deal with the usual rambly nonsense instead.

Anyway, here’s the news: I now have great tickets for new Busch and cable for watching the WBC. Rejoice and be glad! But there are problems: I’m only going to see one game at New Busch this year (drat it all) and I am too busy running around cheering up my brokenhearted friends to watch TV. I thought spring was supposed to be the season of lurve! Why is everyone I know breaking up? So I haven’t been able to catch much of the World Baseball Classic. I have, however, listened to spring training games on the Internet.

These games are great because I feel like I’m practicing, just like the players are. You know, getting used to hearing names like Spivey and Encarnacion, readapting to the pace of baseball, thinking about how much I missed Mike Shannon… Basically, I’m in almost-heaven these days, except for the fact that I keep getting all these text messages from my friends about being dumped. Seriously: four (four!) couples in a week.

Ask me again in April.