When the Cardinals Won It in '06

It doesn’t matter if the Cardinals are winning or losing, they are what make me love baseball more and more each time I watch or play the game.

There’s the element of a legacy in baseball history that not all franchises can claim. There are the 10 World Series championships the team has already won, and the several more I’d like to see in my lifetime.

The last time, in 2006, was one we had to win (and by “we” I mean all of St. Louis). The year 2004 we lost and ended the 86-year drought of the Boston Red Sox.

I remember my family and I were at church helping out with a children’s fall festival party. My younger sister and I dressed up: She stole my idea of being a Cubs fan with a “kick me” sign taped to her back, so I was a scarecrow. The evening was fun, but none of us could help thinking about the game.

It was Oct. 27, 2006, Game 5 of the World Series, St. Louis Cardinals vs. Detroit Tigers. My dad’s intermittent updates from the radio broadcast throughout the candy-filled event only fueled my curiosity in the outcome of the game.

As the other families started to leave and we began tearing down the fall games and picking up stray candy wrappers, my dad told my sister and I we would be leaving.

“But there’s still more to clean up,” I had said. We were always one of the last families to leave.

Regardless, we hopped into our van, turned on the radio and drove off peacefully. My sister and I kept asking where we were going, especially once we missed the turn to go to our house.

Mom just kept looking over at Dad and smiling, wanting to tell us.

After we were on the highway, I knew where we were going.

We got there just in time. Once we found a parking spot on the crowded downtown St. Louis streets, we started walking – no, jogging, really – toward Busch Stadium. I even tripped and fell.

My sister felt dumb for wearing a Cubs shirt and having a large red “C” painted on her face, and I felt silly in overalls, but when we joined the growing crowd staring intently at the TVs through the team store windows, I was overwhelmed with nothing but excitement.

It was the 8th inning when we arrived. Any loud rupture of cheers or malcontent was a cue to squint harder at the TVs.

And then it happened. Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright struck out the Tigers’ Brandon Inge for the third out of the ninth inning. The score was 4-2. The Cardinals had won.

Everything erupted. Ecstatic shouts, tears, fireworks, jumping, roaring – a stranger even came over, picked up my sister, twirled her around in the air, and set her back down on the ground.

I’ll admit it: I cried. I was so happy. This was something I had never been a part of before. This is a moment I will never forget.

With the eyeliner-marked freckles on my face, my pigtails and overalls, I didn’t need a Cardinals shirt to be a fan. I just needed to love the team and the city of St. Louis as much as I still do.

What are your World Series plans?