baseball season has one more day left in it

FROM KEITH GROLLER

Forgive me for this post. I know to a lot of people around here, the baseball season ended three Fridays ago.

Even Morning Call sports editor Bill Kline called this World Series a prime-time nuisance in a Tribune "Four Corners" mini-column the other day (thus providing an answer to why there have been no stories on the Series on the front page of our section).

And my guess is that a lot of other bitterly disappointed Phillies cheerleaders feel the same way as Bill.

They jumped back on the Eagles or Penn State bandwagon even before Ryan Howard was helped off the ground after making the final out of the NLDS and suffering his Achilles injury.

Baseball season? What baseball season?

They tuned out along with most of the East Coast with the Yanks, Red Sox and Phils all done.

But for me, the baseball season has continued even as the temps have gotten colder and the days much shorter.

And now, amazingly, the baseball season still has one more night left.

As a Cardinals fan since I basically learned how to walk and talk, I think this Fall Classic has been, well, a Classic with lots of memorable stuff. We've had plenty of the good, bad and ugly and lots of blood, sweat and tears, too, not to mention some faulty phone lines.
Game 6 on Thursday night had it all, including some bad plays by the Cardinals that were so hideous that little league teams don't even make them.

And yet, they kept coming back and coming back and coming back.

They were down 1-0, 3-2, 4-3, 7-4, and 9-7.

They were down to their last strike, twice.

And yet they didn't quit.

I would like to say I didn't quit either, but quite disgusted at several points, I turned the TV off and decided to do some stuff on the laptop. And then, after a few minutes, I either checked the game on MLB.com, afraid to see an "F" behind the score, or turned the TV back on, always afraid to see Texas celebrating. I couldn't bear to watch it. Not pitch-by-pitch anyway. At least not from the top of the seventh inning when Texas took the 7-4 lead until the bottom of the 11th.

Thankfully, the Cardinals had more resiliency than me and pulled out one of the most amazing World Series games you'll ever want to see -- no matter who was involved.

So, there is one more night left in this baseball season, and I just hope that the Howard Johnson hotel in Norwich, N.Y., can get Fox because that's where I will be at gametime tonight. I am going into upstate New York Friday afternoon so as to beat the bad weather being forecast and get a jumpstart on reaching Hamilton, N.Y., for Saturday's Lehigh-Colgate football game.

Whether they win by a 6-3 score as they did in Game 7 of the 1982 World Series when they beat the Brewers or lose by 11-0 as they did in Game 7 of the 1985 World Series in Kansas City, these Cardinals won't be forgotten anytime soon, much like my favorite Cardinals pictured below... Red Schoendinst, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, and the Wizard, Ozzie Smith.



To these legends, Cardinals fans can now add David Freese, Lance Berkman, Daniel Descaslo, Allen Craig and everybody else who had a hand in that craziness under the Arch on Thursday night.

My baseball season has more night left and for me it could be one I will never forget.

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/2011/10/my-baseball-season-has-one-more-day-left-in-it.html