A New Project

Back in the 1980s, I was a baseball-crazed adolescent and the Cardinals were blazing around the basebaths to three National League pennants and the 1982 World Series championship. Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith is surely the most beloved player of that era among Cardinals fans, but if there is one guy who can (very speedily) give him a run for his money, it just might be Willie McGee. 

Willie played the first 8.5 years of his 19-year career with the Cardinals, before returning in 1996 to play his final four seasons in St. Louis. The wildly popular #51 now serves as a coach for the team. It was as a rookie in 1982 that Willie burst onto the national scene in game three of the World Series when he hit two home runs and made a pair of spectacular catches, including robbing Gorman Thomas of a ninth inning two-run homer. 

Three years later in his MVP season of 1985, Willie had the best year of his career, hitting .353 to win his first of two NL batting titles, stealing 56 bases, and winning both the Silver Slugger and the Gold Glove for NL centerfielders. Even though they fell just three outs short of winning it all, that season remains my favorite baseball season ever, and that year's Cardinals squad will forever be my favorite team.  

All the cards I purchased back in those days were by the pack from the local drug store. In 1985 though, there was one exception. A friend and I both responded to an ad in a card collecting magazine and purchased some of that year's Willie McGee and Dwight Gooden card. I was recently flipping through some old cards I've had in plastic sheets since those days nearly four decades ago (by the way, it feels really crazy to type those words), and I found a plastic sheet full of those Willie McGee cards. That, combined with having recently seen some guys I know from the collecting community on Twitter (see here and here) gave me an idea: I would try to collect as many copies of that card as I could. 

It fits on so many levels: 

• It's a reasonably inexpensive card, considered a common in most areas outside of St. Louis.
• It's a card from my favorite season and evokes all kinds of wonderful memories.
• It may just be the Willie McGee-est card ever, from his MVP season, with his awkward looking (though often effective) swing and the beautiful road blue uniforms pictured. 
• Willie was absolutely one of my favorites as a teenager, and I often chased after him, trying to get him to sign my cards.

Wish me luck. Tell #51 I'm chasing after him once again. And if you have a case of the Willies, you know what to do with them!

With my lovely wife, donning Willie's
#51 on my 51st birthday!

I guess 3+2 = 5, right?

I was unaware of this little nugget of information that I picked up today from the great Cardinals beat writer, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. After a head-turning spring training of 2001, Albert Pujols was on the brink of making the Major League squad. 

So Albert almost ended up wearing #32 instead of his now familiar #5. What I found most interesting about this fact was its connection (at least in my thoughts) to my son, Jack. Jack was born in late 1999, so he literally does not remember a time before Albert took the field for the Cardinals. Living in St. Louis with a baseball-crazy dad, Jack quickly became a very big baseball fan in general and a very big Cardinals fan in particular. Albert Pujols was (of course) a favorite of his.

In fact, the very first MLB game that Jack ever attended was May 29, 2003. A friend had given us row one field box seats just past the Cardinals' dugout, and it just happened to be Albert Pujols Bat Night. To make things even more amazing, Albert even signed Jack's bat before the game! Jack hadn't even seen one pitch of MLB action, and he basically had no hope of ever having a better experience at the ballpark!

The summer of 2006, we moved from St. Louis to Michigan. Jack was about to enter first grade, and was extremely upset when we told him that we were moving. Ini fact, the only way that we were able to console him was by telling him that Detroit was only an hour away, and we promised that we'd take him there for baseball games, especially when our Cardinals came to town.

You may recall that this was the very season that the Cardinals met the Tigers in the World Series. Unfortunately we were unable to get tickets to Series games, but even so, ours was the only happy household in our neighborhood when the Cardinals finished off the Tigers in five games. We had already put Jack to bed on October 27th, but I made sure to wake him up for the bottom of the ninth so he could see his team win it all. You can imagine how all his new friends felt when he showed up at school for Halloween just days later dressed as Albert Pujols!

In spite of the fact that we lived in Tigers country, Jack has remained a Cardinals fan (and a Pujols fan!) all these years. Growing up, the walls of his room were filled with baseball pictures, pennants and plaques. They had a decided Cardinals emphasis to them, and even more specifically an Albert Pujols emphasis. And throughout Little League and travel baseball, Jack always wore #5 and played first base.

Here's why I found that nugget from Derrick Goold interesting though: When Jack was in high school, while he was still a first baseman, he didn't get to choose his number. What number do you think he was assigned? You guessed it...32. The very same number that Albert almost was assigned all those years ago!

For Personal Reasons, Still My Favorite

33 years ago today, the movie Field of Dreams was released. It’s a film that weaves together some of my favorite topics: the game of baseball, the nostalgia of its history, fatherhood, and redemption. 

Is it incredibly sappy? Admittedly, yes. Do they inexplicably screw up some of the historical details? Frustratingly so. Does it nostalgically idealize an era that was in many ways far less than ideal? Of course. 

Even with all of its faults though, it remains my favorite movie. Why exactly? Well, you have to consider the backstory of my first viewing of the movie.

One day in the spring of 1989, I got into an argument with my dad. I’ll spare you the details, but three important things stand out: 

1. It’s cause: I was a stupid, head-strong 17-year old boy. 
2. It’s content: I said something incredibly hurtful to him. 
3. It’s result: For the first time in my life, I saw my father cry. And I was directly responsible for it happening. 

Thankfully, I apologized almost immediately, forgiveness was offered and accepted, and we fully reconciled right there on the spot. Literally just one week later though, I went to see a movie. It was about a baseball fanatic who, as a stupid, head-strong 17-year old, had said something incredibly hurtful to his father, and was haunted by the fact that he never had the opportunity to apologize to him. Obviously, it hit close to home and stirred up all kinds of feelings. It still does today. And that is why, even though I realize that it’s not *the best* film ever, it is (and likely will forever be) my favorite movie.