... At the old ball game

[This post is about 6 days late as life has not permitted me much computer time in the last week]

God bless David Eckstein.

His RBI base hit (albeit scored on an error) ended the Cardinal's longest losing streak in 8 years last Wednesday at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. And I was there to see it all go down.

Nothing spells summer to me like an evening at the ballpark. There's something electric that happens while soaking in live the best game ever invented. Make it a Cardinals game and I can't possibly think of a better way to spend my evening.

Last week Cliff took me to St. Louis to take in a game at the new Busch Stadium. We went to the old one last year right before it was torn down and we promised each other we'd return when the new one was built. Keeping our word, we arrived last Wednesday to stand-still traffic over the Mississippi River. Alas, we finally made it.

The game was incredible. We got off to an early lead, but let's face it, our pitching staff is crap. The minute our bull pen opened up in the eighth, our lead immediately deteriorated to being down by a run. By the end of the eighth inning, it looked like the Cleveland Indians would be handing us our 9th straight loss. Many Cardinals fans had had enough and made their way to the exits.

But Cliff and I had come too far to give up. Although an early morning shift at Starbucks awaited me the next day, I couldn't leave. We stayed planted in our seats through the top of the 9th as Isringhausen bumbled his way to a saved inning. With no runs scored, it was time for the Cardinals to take one last shot.

In times like this I see each baseball game as something like an epic battle. It doesn't matter how well or how bad a team has been doing in the past. The only thing that matters is this moment, this strike, this hit, this out. Some see the game crawling along at a snail's pace, but you can't watch it like that. You have to see the intricacy, the strategy, the human drama as each player puts aside the past to make the play. They truly are warriors with knee socks and billed caps, slinging that little white ball like a projectile missile.

So Taguchi stepped up to bat. He just happens to be my favorite Cardinal because it seems like when the Cards are in a tough spot and everyone starts sucking, he steps up his game. However, it looked like the inning was over when he tipped the ball straight up over home plate. The ball went sky high... there's no way the Indians wouldn't catch it. But So ran anyway, and as the pitcher brought the ball down with his glove, it dropped to the ground. Suddenly, hope! The crowd went wild as Taguchi doubled on the error. Molina squeezed him to third, Miles brought him home with a base hit. The Cards and Indians were tied with one out in the 9th.

The next out went to Spezio, who still managed to put Miles in scoring position for the game-winning run. Up came Eckstein who hadn't been playing his best that night. Eckstein has a reputation of always getting on base one way or another, however he hadn't been living up to his rep that Wednesday night. Now he had the opportunity to bring in the game-winning run. He grounded to short. Everyone held their breaths as he ran hard for first although it looked like we'd be going into extra innings. But as the short stop threw the ball to first for the third out, something happened and he missed the glove of the waiting first baseman. Eckstein was safe at first and Miles was in at home. The Cardinals won!

I'll never forget that moment as long as I live. Even my boyfriend, who tends to take plays like that sitting down, was up on his feet right along side of me clapping and cheering.

Did I mention I love baseball?