Cardinal Red Trumps Yankee Pinstripes

There are two different scenarios that may have taken place by the time this column appears. The Texas Rangers will have won the World Series or the St. Louis Cardinals and the Rangers are preparing for a dramatic game seven. Either way it plays out, I win.

I have faithfully followed the hometown Rangers baseball team for years and enjoyed their rise out of mediocrity. I cheered them on through last year’s World Series and celebrated with each win in this year’s playoff rounds. The only team and I mean the only team that would test that allegiance is my team - the St. Louis Cardinals.

The sports pages are full of adjectives to describe the unlikely circumstances that led them to the National League Pennant so I won’t repeat them. Let’s just say that anyone who is truly a Cardinals fan should admit they were lucky to play a single game in October.

I admit that I rooted for the Cardinals last Sunday as I attended my first World Series game. Actually, it wasn’t much of a game at all for Cardinal fans. The Rangers were certainly favored to win the series and the momentum is heading towards that end but I will remain loyal to the team that killed the Yankees.

Growing up in the New York City area in the 60’s, loyalty to the pinstripes was an expectation. A few disillusioned kids rooted for the terrible New York Mets but the Yankees were king. They had played in 15 World Series over the previous 20 years and they were favored to win another one in 1964.

There were Yankees pitching everything from cars to Yoo Hoo I just wasn’t buying the whole Yankee thing but didn’t have an alternative yet.

I was eight years old and joined my classmates each afternoon as we ran home to watch the second half of the games that started around 2 p.m. I secretly tuned in to the 1967 World Series on a small transistor radio and my junior high teacher tuned in the game for the whole class in 1970. The Sisters of Charity were not as understanding when I was in third grade. They had us reciting Mother Seton poems while Bob Gibson was throwing pitches to Mickey Mantle.
The Cardinals won that ’64 World Series in seven games and earned my loyalty for life. Many years later when I moved to the Midwest I learned that a good portion of the country were Cardinal fans because their radio broadcasts reached from Minnesota to Texas. In New Jersey, however, you had to search hard to find a Cardinals fan.

As our hometown team, I have celebrated or suffered along with Texas Ranger fans since moving to Texas in 1995. It’s not like I was cheating on the Cardinals. The Rangers were an American League team and the odds of St. Louis and Texas ever crossing paths were nearly impossible.
Now that the impossible has occurred, I need to stick with my Yankee killers but I’ll be cheering that Rangers victory parade if (or when) it occurs. Is that wrong?