Lifelong Cardinals Fan Turns to Pujols, Dodgers for Baseball Magic in ’21
As Redbirds falter, an L.A.-Chisox Fall Classic sounds good
Baseball. I’ve loved the game since I was a small child.
The crack of the bat sending a double down the line. The pop of a fastball blazing into the catcher’s mitt on strikeout. A speed demon getting the jump on a pitcher and stealing second with ease. A throw from the hole to nab the runner at first by half a step. And, of course, ESPN’s go-to highlight: Long, towering drives that leave the field of play and land amid elated or dejected fans — round, red-stitched souvenirs imbued with enduring memories, be they bitter or sweet.
I could go on, but there are too many possibilities to list them all. Baseball — the game once commonly referred to as America’s pastime — still has what it takes to keep us interested. Some of us, at least. Even if our favorite team is mediocre at best this season.
As a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan, I’ve witnessed and felt the magic of more great seasons than I can count on both hands. Before I had even lived a decade, I closely followed the diamond achievements of Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Ted Simmons, and many others. As the years went by, I kept paying attention. There are too many great Cardinal baseball names to rattle off, but Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee, and Yadier Molina — still getting the job done behind the plate at age 39 — must be mentioned.
And let’s not forget some of the superb arms that have passed through the Gateway City since the late 1960s. In addition to the legendary Gibson, there’s Steve Carlton, Bob Forsch, Chris Carpenter, John Tudor, Bruce Sutter, Lee Smith, Dennis Eckersly, Jason Isringhausen, and “The Mad Hungarian,” Al Hrabosky. Another all-time great Cardinal pitcher, Adam Wainwright, is still active and boasts a 12–7 record this season — an admirable accomplishment at any age but especially noteworthy for a hurler one year shy of 40.
But one of the greatest players to wear the Birds on the Bat — one of the greatest players of all time — is now playing for a team with another great tradition of fielding superstar players and winning teams: the Los Angeles Dodgers. His uniform number may have changed and his skills may have diminished, but when he steps up to the plate, he still has the capacity to change everything with one swing of the bat.
That player is Albert Pujols — №. 5 with the St. Louis Cardinals and L.A. Angels, and №. 55 with the L.A. Dodgers.
In Major League action Aug. 21, Pujols hit his 15th home run of the season (№. 677 of his career) to help lift the Dodgers over the New York Mets. Earlier this year, in a 22–1 Dodgers blowout of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Pujols posted numbers not unlike those from his St. Louis Cardinals prime. “The Great Pujols,” as the writer Buzz Bissinger referred to him in the 2006 baseball classic Three Nights in August, went 3-for-6 with two home runs. Even in a lopsided victory, it was good to see him putting up numbers like that again.
At this point in the season, the Dodgers’ playoff hopes are far more realistic than those of the Cardinals. Not only do they have a dominant lead in the wildcard race, they have the second-best record in baseball at 81–47, just 2.5 games behind their division rivals, the unbelievable San Francisco Giants. Conceivably, though, the Dodgers could still overtake the Giants to win the National League West.
The Redbirds, meanwhile, are just a couple games above .500, a whopping 13 games behind the Central Division-leading Milwaukee Brewers. But as the late, great, and legendary broadcaster Jack Buck often told booth partner Mike Shannon, “Stranger things have happened.”
True enough. Strange things happened in 2011, the last year the Cardinals won a World Series championship. Coincidentally — or not — it was Pujols’ last year in St. Louis. It was also current Chicago White Sox manager Tony La Russa’s last year at the helm in St. Louis.
In 2011, the Cardinals clawed back from being 10.5 games behind the Atlanta Braves in the Wild Card race on Aug. 24 to overtake the Braves on the final day of the season, earning the right to play the mighty Philadelphia Phillies in one of two division series (There was only one Wild Card team per league in 2011.)
Amazingly, they went on to beat not only the Phillies in that series, but the NL Central division winners Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series. The storybook season culminated for the Cardinals with a victory over the Texas Rangers in a seven-game Fall Classic that rates among the greatest World Series ever played.
But will something similar happen this year? Optimistic Cardinal fans can certainly hope so, at least until the reality of mathematics make that hope impossible, but a more plausible scenario would be the Dodgers facing the White Sox in the Fall Classic.
Barring a couple collapses of unthinkable magnitude, both the Dodgers and White Sox will earn a spot in this year’s postseason. And if these two teams with Cardinal connections in 2021 make it all the way to the Word Series?
I’ll be watching every game and hoping for a seven-game series. I want to see Albert Pujols, arguably the greatest player La Russa ever managed, come to bat late in that all-important seventh game with a chance to win it all for the Dodgers.
Should it come to that, would this loyal Redbirds fan want to see one last hurrah for the former Cardinals player, or a big win for the former Cardinals manager? I love ya, Tony, but I know I’d be on the edge of my seat waiting to see Pujols hit one out of the park to give the Dodgers their second consecutive World Series title.
Yes, stranger things have happened, but for some reason, that scenario doesn’t seem all that strange. In a weird, baseball superstition kind of way, it almost feels like it’s in the cards.
Only time will tell, of course. Meanwhile, there’s still a whole lot of baseball to play!
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