Sunday, August 9, 2020

A Pennant-Winning Pennant

We’ve been cleaning out our basement, and in the process have uncovered some items that I’ve had tucked away. One of them is this fun pennant that I remembered I had, but hadn’t been able to locate for over a decade! As you can probably see, it had something spill/drip on it (that happened long ago when we still lived in St. Louis), but I still think it’s a fun item.

1985 was the summer between 7th and 8th grade, and I think it was one of the first summers that my friend Craig and I went to games by ourselves and tried to get players’ autographs before and/or after the games. It was a magical season as the Cardinals won 101 games on their way to the National League Pennant. Perhaps it was the style of ball they played (stealing over 300 bases) and perhaps it was the age I was at the time, but even though they fell one game short of winning the World Series, all these years later, the '85 Birds are still my favorite team ever! In fact, I even administer a Twitter account that recaps their season day-by-day!

Anyway, the pennant above was one that I got signed by a many of the players on that team (in addition to a couple Cardinals legends). While many of the signers played multiple seasons with the Cardinals, two of them (Ivan DeJesus and Bill Campbell) played for the team only in 1985. And one of the signers (Todd Worrell) only joined the club for the last six weeks of the season, so I must have gotten at least some (if not all) of the autographs relatively late in the season.

Two Hall of Famers signed my pennant back in 1985: 

  • Lou Brock (who was inducted to the Hall of Fame in '85, and is my all-time favorite)
  • Red Schoendienst (who was a coach for the ‘85 Cardinals)

And here are the ten players from the 1985 Redbirds signed it:

I have no idea how much something like this is "worth." Probably not a whole lot, given the condition. But for the memories it evokes of a 13-year old kid getting those autographs, it is absolutely priceless to me! And 35 years later, it makes me want to track down Ozzie Smith and Tom Nieto to sign it so I could have a whole starting lineup's worth! 

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