Um... I'm for the other team.

It's tough being a Cardinal fan in Texas, especially if they are doing well and there's something to cheer about and nobody to cheer with (except my husband, the other lonely Cardinal fan in Texas). Last year was painful, especially it seemed like everyone on earth went gung-ho for the Sox, even here. It was very lonely, alienating and embarrassing. I am not a sports fan, not really. I travelled too much growing up to have a "home team" and my mother (who raised me mostly alone) was very anti-sports. I lived in St. Louis for about 10 years or so before the first stirrings of Cardinal Fever (Catch It!!) began. Baseball was more important in that town than anything else, except maybe Anhueser-Busch products (and the Baseball team was one of those then, they owned the team, and there was Auggie Busch and singing the Busch marching song during 7th inning stretch). Jack Buck (RIP) was very dear to me, and Mike Shannon is too. I sure miss hearing him (well, both of them actually) doing the games. Those new-fangled guys have no personality. borrrrrrriiing.

And Tony La Russa, I gotta love him! He's an animal advocate and a vegetarian. He's the head of the Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF), a no-kill shelter which he started after a stray cat wandered onto the field in San Francisco in 1990, and TLR learned that there was a need for a real shelter. I love the radio interview (by J.C. Corcoran) where he asked him to list the names of his 10 cats. He got stumped and only named 9, then got frustrated with himself because he couldn't think of the name of that 10th cat!

Anyway the Cards are headed into the playoffs against (sheesh!!) the Astros, so I will be keeping my head down and holding my *cards* close to the vest. Someday... maybe in ten years or so... I will become a fan of one of the local teams (and just for the record, Houston is not local to Austin in my mind. Kansas City and Chicago are reasonably close to St. Louis, although not by Texas standards, and believe me they are not local to St. Louis. With Chicago there's a fun-loving rivalry, but the Royals shall be damned for eternity).

Good grief, I hate sports. It's only a game, right? This year I think I will stay in the closet until it's all over, but if the cards win the Series, I will be decked out in red!

I don't miss St. Louis and would never want to move back there, but I will say this: pssssst, Go Cards.

- Baseball - Cardinals -